No. 4.] FARM ACCOUNTING. 131 



day to the books, in order to have them where every bit of 

 information is easily available, than to do without them be- 

 cause we think we have no time, with the result that when we 

 need a certain bit of information we must spend hours, perhaps, 

 looking through papers, bills, books, and so forth, and then not 

 find it, even in the end. I know the plea that you have no 

 time to give to the books, that you cannot afford to hire any 

 one else, that a farmer has no chance until evening for anything 

 of that kind, and then he is too tired, after such a long day's 

 work as his must be. If he is interested in having his books 

 well kept, and if he can co-operate with several others who 

 care to do the same thing, then this plan of a co-operative 

 bookkeeper is, in my opinion, the best solution of his problem. 

 In this way he has the advantage of an accountant who knows, 

 not only accounts in general, but farm accounts in particular, 

 and also has that accountant at a reasonable expense. 



In every case I have found that the work which I have 

 done on the accounts has stimulated the farmers themselves 

 to a desire to know definitely about the financial side of 

 their venture. Moreover, as they realized more and more the 

 value of the records, they became more anxious to have them 

 complete, and the suggestion to add a new sort of record 

 has frequently come from the owner rather than the book- 

 keeper. 



For instance, when it comes to the question of distribution 

 of labor, the farmer may say, "It is impossible to divide the 

 labor; most of the time of most of the men is general labor; 

 we cannot split up each one's time." So I get from him, as 

 best I can, a general idea of what the different men do, 

 and then wait. By and by he comes to me, perhaps, about 

 two men who, he has previously told me, were putting about 

 all their time on general work. He will say, "You ought 

 not to charge all their time to general labor; it is too much. 

 They are really putting considerable time on that new build- 

 ing. I think we should keep an account of that, in order to 

 charge it to permanent improvement." "Very well," I say. 

 "That is just the sort of thing I want to get hold of." Then' 

 I have him start, in the simplest possible way, a daily record 

 of the time of those men. 



