A PRACTICAL SYSTEM OF COST-FINDING 



lOST-FINDING, as applied to the florist grower or 



retail grower, seeks to determine the actual cost of 



producing and marketing crops, in order that the 

 business may be conducted in the most efficient and profit- 

 able manner. 



When read at one sitting, the methods herein de- 

 scribed may appear tedious and complicated; but they 

 are not. Any person with an eighth-grade education and 

 an average head for figures will find the actual work in- 

 volved simple, interesting, and increasingly profitable as 

 he progresses. In cost-finding, unlike plain bookkeeping, 

 the recorder often makes his own estimates. Cost-finding 

 is not exact, nor is there need for absolute accuracy. 

 Moreover, there are few hard and fast rules. 



Only a very small percentage of growers (4.5 out of 

 every 100, according to the writer's survey in 1920) can 

 tell even roughly the comparative costs of growing different 

 crops. This is a regrettable condition, the more so since 

 no one suffers more from it than the grower himself. 



Talk cost-finding to the average florist, and he will 

 run from you. He ''hasn't time" or ''cannot see the need 

 of it," Many growers confuse high yield jwith profitable 

 yield, whereas there is a distinct difference. Simply be- 

 cause the returns from a crop are high does not imply 

 that the space has been used most profitably. Perhaps 

 the cost of producing the crop has been so great that, in 



