METHODS OF CONDUCTING COST STUDIES. 37 
ments of the cattle and the hogs following them. When the cattle 
are marketed, however, the route agent discontinues his routine 
visits, but returns to each farm at the end of the farm year and 
makes a survey of the entire farm business. 
OCCASIONAL VISIT AND BOOK PLAN. 
Under the occasional visit and book method, labor, feeding, 
financial, and production records are kept by the farmer in a book 
provided for that purpose, and occasional visits are made to the 
farm by the supervising agent in charge of the project. These visits 
may be made once in two months, or as infrequently as once in 
three months. 
The value of this method 1 lies in the large number of farmers who 
may be carried on the accounting project with a correspondingly 
low cost per farm. It seems essential with this method to select 
the farms very carefully, since much depends on the interest and 
accuracy of the farmers. 
CORRESPONDENCE PLAN. 
The Office of Farm Management some years ago developed a cor- 
respondence plan of cost accounting which was placed in operation 
on a considerable number of farms in various parts of the United 
States through approximately a 10-year period. 
The advantages of this method were the large number of farms 
that could be covered with a given fund for study and the wide 
range of conditions that could be represented. The disadvantages 
were the lack of personal supervision in the recording of* the data, 
the constantly arising question as to the completeness and accuracy 
of the records, the difficulty of keeping up the interest of the cooper- 
ators, and the danger that the cooperator might lack the ability or 
inclination to give the accounts through the year. The question of 
unconscious bias is one that enters into all accounting records, and 
lack of supervision with the cooperators far above the average in 
intelligence and ability are factors in the bias problem. There is 
also a tendency for cooperators to drop out after the first year, for 
it often becomes a heavy task to keep the labor record up to date. 
For this reason it is usually impossible to obtain long-time records 
by this method. 
Because of the disadvantages enumerated above, it has been 
felt that the route plan, combining some of the reporting features 
of the correspondence method, is preferable, since it provides the 
supervision and attention to details that are essential to complete 
farm records. 
2 The system is fully described ana explained in the revised Farmers' Bulletin 572, "A System of Farm 
Cost Accounting." 
