22 BULLETIN 994, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
prises and an indication of the preferable uses of the various forms of 
farm capital. For example, shall the crops grown on the farm be 
fed to dairy cattle, to beef cattle and hogs, largely to hogs alone, or 
sold for cash on the grain and hay markets ? Does it aid in under- 
standing the farm business to show the profits from growing crops as 
credits to the live stock that may be maintained ? It is plain that if, 
for example, the intention is to show the profits in dairying, it can 
often readily be shown that very low-producing cows will show a 
profit if the basis for charging crops fed is the cost of production on 
a farm where the land is fertile and good yields are realized. But if 
a crop is looked upon as a separate enterprise, it is desirable to find 
out the status of the enterprise with the return considered as being 
available for use either in the form of cash from sale of the product 
or in the form of feed charged to live stock at what the feed would be 
worth were it purchased. 
On the other hand, it is apparent that one might consider the 
returns from his farm as a double profit if he computed the profits 
from his crops, and at the same time the crops when fed to live stock 
were charged at cost and the crop profits again reflected in the live- 
stock accounts. As a matter of fact, most farmers are interested in 
the grand total profit and in eliminating as many of the low-producing 
enterprises as possible. Where a farmer does not go into the details 
of his costs' in an analysis of his business, the easiest way of expressing 
his profits from farming is simply to show the difference between 
expenses and receipts in one lump sum. For example, if the prin- 
cipal salable products from the farm business are cattle and hogs, 
one may learn the profits from this business by deducting all expenses 
of running the farm, from the total receipts, and in expressing the 
cost per unit of doing business it would be justifiable for the operator 
to divide the total expense by the total number of salable units. 
However, this process of accounting would not necessarily indicate 
that there might not be more profitable alternative uses for the crops 
that were fed to the cattle and hogs and for the other forms of capital 
consumed in their production. 
Thus it will be seen that two entirely opposite conclusions may 
be reached by the two different methods of considering the cost per 
unit of product put on the market. Taking the example already 
cited (p. 13), where home-grown feeds largely constituted the feed 
consumed, the steers might cost, say, $60 per head, if the feed be 
valued at its cost of production. If the feed is valued at its farm 
value, which is the market value less the cost of marketing, the same 
live-stock units might show a cost of over $100 per head. If we 
assume that the live-stock units were sold at $100 per head, the first 
method would show a profit of $40 per head, while by the second 
method a loss would be indicated. As a matter of fact, the operator 
