1921.] Accounts of a Hampshire Down Flock. LQ7 



flock in 1920 let two lambs at 225 and 150 guineas respectively, 

 and sold three others at 82, 54, and 48 guineas, the average for 

 78 lambs being over £24, while the 20 shearlings averaged Deadly 

 £19 each. The draft ewes and the butcher's lambs made over 

 £6 each as compared with 73s. in the previous year. The wool, 

 of which the ewes clipped over 8 lb. and the lambs under 3 Lb., 

 produced £452, as against ,£327. The valuation of the flock 

 shows a considerable rise, nearly 1*700, but this was not due to 

 any writing up of the value of the ewes, which would have been 

 done in an ordinary valuation according to market prices, but to 

 the fact that 47 tegs had not been sold by the 11th October 

 (afterwards realising £306), that there were 11 more flock lambs 

 kept over, and that the pedigree costs for rams hired and pur- 

 chased had been increased by £140, and that the cost of keep 

 from 1st May had been greater. 



The final result shows a loss of £190, a sufficiently discon- 

 certing result for what had seemed to be a good year, when the 

 fall of lambs had been good, the early spring favourable, and the 

 sales both in amount and quality far better than the flock had 

 hitherto realised. Of course the loss could be converted into a 

 profit if the hay, charged at market price — £13, were charged at 

 cost, i.e., at something under £4. Then the debit of £566 would 

 become £176. In the oats and beans bought from the farm is 

 also concealed a little profit. If all the home grown foods were 

 charged at cost the account would show a nominal profit of 

 £250 instead of a loss of £190. Argument will of course 

 be perennial whether it is more correct to charge the live 

 stock at cost or market price for home grown foods ; it does 

 not matter much except in times like the present when market 

 prices are fluctuating widely. The important thing is that the 

 farmer, using his book-keeping for his own information, should 

 not deceive himself. The final upshot of the accounts of this 

 flock, whether home grown food is taken in at cost or market 

 price, comes to the same thing, viz., the flock produced from 

 171 acres of arable land cropped with roots, vetches, (fee., 40 

 acres of seeds as hay, 8 acres of pats and beans, and 92 acres of 

 lattermath, a cash return of about £250 after all expenses had 

 been paid. The flock is only valued at about l'3.000 at Mich;' l- 

 mas, but taking the average of the net expenditure also standing 

 against it throughout the year it ought to be paying interest on 

 a sum of about £5,000 floating capital. The result then could 

 be summed up as showing that the flock returns a bare 5 per 

 cent, on its capital while the land which the flock used, some 220 

 acres, earned no profit at all. 



