METHODS OF CONDUCTING COST STUDIES. 35 



live-stock account, it is also essential to have recorded the amount 

 of farm produce grown on the farm which is consumed in the home. 

 It is common practice to inventory the kitchen, dining room, and the 

 bedroom equipment used for the laborers, and to allow going wages 

 for the household help in arriving at the cost of board and lodging 

 of the hired laborers. 



It is not always a simple matter to determine accurately the 

 amount of produce consumed in the home. To facilitate the keeping 

 of this record the garden is usually charged in to to to the household 

 account, and if any garden produce is sold the return is credited to 

 the household account at the end of the year. This saves the trouble 

 of attempting to record and evaluate various items of vegetables as 

 they are consumed. The dairy, poultry, and other live-stock prod- 

 ucts are the principal items that must receive attention in this record 

 as they are consumed. 



Where married men are kept on the farm in separate tenant 

 houses certain perquisites are usually furnished in the way of the 

 keep of a cow, a share of the chickens, and a garden plot. In an 

 estimate of the cost of hired labor these items must be taken into 

 consideration along with the cash wages paid. It is also common 

 practice on many farms for the married help in the tenant house to 

 board the single hired men who may be employed. The most com- 

 mon practice in this regard is for the owner of the farm to pay the 

 board of the single hired men at an agreed rate per month. 



There are two ways of getting the household record. One is to 

 get from the housekeeper a monthly estimate of the amounts of the 

 various products consumed, as illustrated in figure 6. When this 

 form is used the quantities are estimated by the housekeeper and 

 the values placed on each item by the route agent. Another way is 

 illustrated in figure 7. This card is tacked up in the kitchen in a 

 convenient place, and the housekeeper records on it daily the essential 

 farm products consumed. Each of these forms has proved very satis- 

 factory in cost-accounting studies. 



PRODUCTION RECORDS. 



In most instances the production record applies to the yield of 

 the various crops and to the dairy production. Where the milk is 

 weighed, either daily or weekly, the ordinary commercial forms for 

 dairy records are used on the cost-accounting routes. The yield 

 record of the various crops, by fields, is usually taken down on the 

 farm by the route agent in an ordinary notebook and later trans- 

 cribed to the supplementary crop-data sheet, which affords oppor- 

 tunity for the rechecking of the yields. Often the yields must be 

 expressed for the time being in terms of the number of loads rather 

 than in weight, particularly in the case of feeds that shrink much in the 

 curing process. 



