1921.] Simple Cost Accounts for Farmers. 217 



of his flock that appreciation is not reahsable and should not be 

 treated as a profit, as it would be under the ordinary system. On 

 the valuation plan the farmer shows profits (or losses) that have 

 not been reahsed and may have to pay tax upon them ; on the 

 costs basis as little as possible beyond cash reahsed comes into 

 the final account — there is no anticipation of profit. Of course 

 there is equally a valuation at the beginning and close of the 

 year, but it is really in the nature of a stock taking, in which the 

 stock is valued at its cost. 



The chief objection of the adoption of a system of cost accounts 

 is the amount of book-keeping involved, requiring more time than 

 can be given to it by the ordinary farmer, who rightly enough 

 considers that he will get most value for his effort if it is spent 

 out of doors seeing that the work is kept up to the mark. A farm 

 of under 500 acres will hardly pay for a book-keeper unless it is 

 intensively cultivated. But on the smaller farms the labour of 

 cost accounting can be greatly reduced and brought within the 

 compass of a master who can only give a few hours a week to 

 it, even if he can get no assistance. What is necessary is to 

 abandon the effort to obtain the cost of production of individual 

 crops and to adopt a few arbitrary rules for the valuation of young 

 live stock. If one is to obtain separately the costs of growing 

 wheat and of growing oats it is necessary to open an account for 

 each field and to allocate week by week the labour, manual and 

 horse, spent on each field. This means not only a good deal of 

 labour in making up the time sheets day by day but a lot of 

 actual desk work in transferring the particulars to the books. 



In the end httle is gained by ascertaining how much more pro- 

 fitable Field A is as compared with Field B. or that wheat, for 

 example, pays better than oats. Both have to be grown for 

 reasons dictated by the rotation, and in so far as the farmer can 

 shift a little from one to the other ordinary considerations of yield 

 and price give him sufficient guidance. The more important 

 question is what the arable land as a whole is yielding as com- 

 pared with grass, and whether the crops or the stock are bringing 

 in the money. Of course a special account can always be opened 

 for some particular crop about which the farmer wants informa- 

 tion ; for example, he may be a considera])le potato grower or 

 may wish to know whether that crop is worth developing, in 

 which case he must go to the extra trouble of finding the cost of 

 the labour, manures, Ac, spent on the potato acreage as distinct 

 from the rest of the arable land. 



While the complete system of costing is very desirable the 



