138 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Mr. F. A. Russell. There has not been a subject before 

 the Board meeting this year, or any other year since I have 

 been a member of the Board, that has interested me more 

 than this subject which we are dealing with at the present 

 time. As the speaker said in the beginning, we farmers do 

 not know what we are doing; we do not know whether we are 

 making money unless the old sheepskin is full. But I would 

 like to ask the lecturer what amount of business a man would 

 naturally have to do to be justified in hiring a bookkeeper; 

 or, in other words, if a man is doing $10,000 or .S15,000 or 

 $25,000 worth of business a year, would he be justified in 

 hiring a bookkeeper, in your estimation? 



Miss GoDDARD. I should think he would. 



Mr. Wheeler. Would Miss Goddard please explain how 

 many farmers she thinks a co-operative bookkeeper could take 

 care of? That is, farmers in the ordinary sense of the word. 

 Perhaps she might be able to tell how many she took care of 

 in her New Hampshire experience. 



Miss Goddard. I took care of four farmers, and it required 

 only about two weeks of each month, so that I could have 

 taken care of eight very easily. 



Mr. Hayden. I w^ould like to ask how much of a book- 

 keeper's time would be needed to do the bookkeeping of a 

 dairy farm of a hundred head of cattle. 



Miss Goddard. I should think a week a month would be 

 sufficient. 



Professor J. A. Foord. I want to rise and second the re- 

 mark of the Chairman about this paper, and say what an 

 excellent paper I think it is. And I want to emphasize one or 

 two points, especially along the lines of the questions already 

 answered. What ]Miss Goddard said about the wife or 

 daughter, I want to amplify a little and say, get the boy or the 

 girl. I think perhaps the wife has enough to do. But I want 

 to emphasize, gentlemen, the desirability of getting the young 

 men interested in the accounting side of it. jNIy experience is 

 that it is hard work to teach old dogs new tricks, and the 

 older men are not going to take up detailed accounting. But 

 the young men we want to keep on the farm, and we want to 

 show them that farming is profitable, because we know it is 



