SYSTEM OF FARM ACCOUNTS. 323 



and energetic carrier. He is also the toiler in the field, " eating 

 his bread by the sweat of his brow." And yet, notwithstanding 

 the farmer occupies such a position, and this is sucli a com- 

 plex, honorable and independent department, how very few 

 there are engaged in it who employ any regular system of 

 accounts in the management of the farm interest. What would 

 we think of the manufacturer or the merchant who kept no 

 account whatever of the cost, or even the amount of stock in- 

 vested in his business ? the manufacturer purchasing his raw 

 material and converting it into cloth, and disposing of the same 

 without the knowledge of the cost of production, or proper cal- 

 culation as to the right stock adapted to the machinery and 

 power of mill, or the merchant doing his business hap-hazard, 

 hoping, without a foundation for his wishes, that he is selling 

 liis goods so that he will secure favorable results in due time, 

 or at least that he is not eating up his capital ; we should not 

 consider them judicious managers, their credit would be below 

 par ; we should not want them as guardians for our children, 

 or appoint them our executors. 



But how is it with the farmer, combining as he does in him- 

 self the manufacturer and the merchant, and the carrier and the 

 laborer, — is it customary for him to keep a systematic account 

 of the various departments of his business ? No ; most of our 

 farmers are lamentably lax in this matter ; not one in a 

 hundred can tell you the exact cost of raising a bushel of corn 

 or a ton of hay ; they sell the product of a field, after they have 

 taken from it the family supplies, and call it all profit. They do 

 not know how much the product has cost them. It is a question 

 if one farmer in a hundred in New England can tell the exact 

 cost of running a farm a year. Now if the manufacturer and 

 the merchant find it so much to their advantage, so absolutely 

 important that their accounts must be kept with the strictest 

 method in their one line of business, why may not the farmer 

 expect to derive as great advantage in a systematic account of 

 the cost and product of his fields ? Why should the farmer go on 

 year after year raising one kind of grain, when a little calcula- 

 tion of the cost and product of another kind would bring double 

 the profit ? Why should the farmer furnish his mills with raw 

 material in the shape of manures and tillage, &c., at the cost of 

 double that which may produce a better article ? It is true, a 



