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. 
