No. 4.] MARKET GARDENING. 49 



wagons; fall work is charged up under the head of "Fall 

 Work." Each day's account is thus posted, and at the end of 

 the month it is footed. I know what it has cost me to weed 

 my strawberry bed ; it cost, the last time, $15.22 to weed 

 it. I know what it cost me to set my greenhouse boiler. 

 There is no guess-work about it. I do my guessing every 

 day and set it right down, and the bookkeeper foots it up. 

 And every man who is doing much business cannot afford 

 to do without a bookkeeper. I heard one man say that he 

 wouldn't have one, because the bookkeeper made mistakes. 

 They are liable to ; so are we. But two of us working to- 

 gether mioht correct a mistake that had been made, and we 

 would o^et nearer to the rio-ht. I set about this business of 

 keeping farm accounts so that I might know which crops 

 were the most profitable. If I i)ut |1 into a crop, and get 

 90 cents back, there must be some reason. If I put $1 in, 

 and get $6 back, there must be some reason. And I am 

 working for $(5 crops, where I can put |1 in and get $(j back, 

 or more. This is on the labor account. The manure and 

 the water are charged u[) as a gross sum to the land. I 

 cultivate 10 acres now ; I cultivated 50, but I prefer 10 in a 

 close and intensive culture to 50, and I think it is really a 

 better business. 



Question. What is the effect on the laborer? 



Mr. Howard. It stinmlates the laborer. The laborer 

 knows that the bookkeeper will take account of what he 

 accomplishes. If a man puts up only 50 bushels of spin- 

 ach in an afternoon, washes it through the tub and puts it 

 up, he is liable to get something of a stimulation, because 

 he ought to put up about 30 an hour. And if he can only 

 wash 10 boxes of lettuce in an hour, he is considered no 

 good ; he should put up at least 1 5 an hour. 



Question. What about the horses ? 



Mr. Howard. The time of each horse is charged, so that 

 I know how many hours' time and how much value in time 

 the horses spend on each crop. The time of the horse in 

 selling is charged, and I find that my horses — I keep four 

 — average only a little over five hours a day, and they are 

 hard worked. They average only a little over five hours a 



