126 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



when there is an institution in your own town which can take 

 better care of your money for -you than you can yourself. 



To return to our accounts. Aside from the cash book there 

 are a few other records which must be kept up daily, in order 

 to give the bookkeeper all the data she needs. Whenever any 

 article of any kind is sold, some record must be made of it. 

 This can best be done by the use of duplicate slips, similar to 

 those used in our grocery and provision stores. By the use of 

 these a carbon copy is made of every slip. One copy goes to 

 the purchaser, the other is kept for the bookkeeper. From all 

 these slips accumulated during the month she makes out the 

 bills. This is a very simple and safe way to keep these items, 

 and the books are very inexpensive. 



The farmer ought also to keep some sort of memoranda of 

 all purchases made, so that when the dealer presents his bill 

 at the end of the month, he or the bookkeeper may be able 

 to check up every item of that bill. In most cases he will 

 receive a slip with each purchase, so that he has merely to keep 

 these together carefully. 



The milk record, feed record, and labor record, if kept at all, 

 must necessarily be kept from day to day. I shall refer to 

 these in more detail later. 



So much for the farmer's part in this bookkeeping. This 

 certainly is not difficult, nor does it require much time, and 

 it is even simpler than it sounds. And the fact that it is 

 simple should recommend it to you, for, next to accuracy, it 

 seems to me that simplicity is the most important quality of 

 a system of farm accounting. By simplicity I do not mean 

 that it shall be any less complete than any well-kept set of 

 books anywhere, but it shall be such that any desired fact 

 may be easily available in the books; that there may be the 

 least possible crossing of accounts from one book to another; 

 that the time which the farmer himself must spend on them 

 shall be kept at a minimum; and that, above everything else, 

 the books, at any time, shall be perfectly intelligible to the 

 farmer himself. 



Aside from the cash book, which is to be kept by the farmer, 

 two other books, kept entirely by the bookkeeper, will be in- 

 dispensable. The first is what I have called a bill book, which 



