130 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



may be accurately determined each month. Then, the question 

 of labor for the whole herd is taken care of on the distribution 

 sheet. So, at the end of the year, if we w^ish to add to the 

 whole year's record an item for labor, it will not be difficult 

 to work out an average cost per cow for the year. The value 

 of the fertilizer and the selling price or value of her calf are 

 items on the other side which have been omitted for the same 

 reason. 



It would be impossible, I think, to work out a system of 

 farm accounting which could be uniform in all cases, for where 

 one farm may require one plan, the next may require quite a 

 different one. The general plan of the system which I have 

 used in my work as bookkeeper is the same, but there are no 

 two places which use just the same sort of records, as the 

 differences in the farms, as well as the preferences of the owners, 

 must be taken into consideration. 



To a certain extent it might be said that accounting could be 

 done equally well for a merchant as for a manufacturing con- 

 cern, for a lawyer as for a farmer, once one has acquired the 

 knowledge of bookkeeping; on the other hand, it seems to me 

 that an accountant will do better work for a merchant if he 

 knows something of a merchant's business than if he knows 

 only figures; in the same way a person who knows nothing 

 about a farm will have more difficulty with a farmer's books 

 than one who does not have to inquire what is meant by such 

 terms as pyrox, silage, balanced rations, butter fat, and so 

 forth. So a bookkeeper who knew something about the business 

 of farming would be more valuable than one who did not. The 

 more he knows about the details of the farm, the better able 

 will he be to analyze the accounts and keep each item in its 

 proper place. 



Because a farmer's books should be as simple as possible, it 

 does not necessarily follow that it is a simple thing to keep 

 them. A set of books which are simple and at the same time 

 comprehensive and definite require, perhaps, more time in their 

 first planning and later in the keeping of them, but one is in- 

 finitely repaid when any bit of information about the business 

 is wanted, and it will be more and more wanted as its advan- 

 tages are seen. How much better to give a few minutes each 



