150 
Gardeners and Florists’ Annual for 1918 
lliit plan by grouping all receipts and bills receivable against all ex- 
penses and charges in the nature of interest, depreciation, etc. The 
difference at the end of a given period will show reasonably certain 
how much has been made or lost. 
One grower keeps this record in a single book, the left-hand page 
showing the receipts and the right-hand page the expenses. Every time 
any money is received the entry is made, day by day, under date on 
the left-hand page; every time any money is paid out, the entry is 
made on the right-hand page. These columns are footed up daily, and 
the totals brought down at the end of every week. This keeps the 
account balanced and always opposite each other. It takes but a 
moment to make the entry in any case; it is done in lead pencil, and 
often when the grower’s hands are wet. It is not the best-looking 
record in the world, but it keeps the grower informed of where he 
stands. 
At the end of the niontli, when his bills go out, he adds these totals 
to the credit totals, on a separate slip of paper, adds the totals he has 
worked out as interest on his investment, depreciation, etc., to the total 
expenses, and he has a rough idea of whether he is running ahead or 
falling behind, and can be governed accordingly. Of course for the 
month when he pays his taxes or lays in his Winter’s coal or makes 
some other heavy expenditure, the discrepancy is all on the debit side, 
but a rough mental calculation takes eare of that. 
This grower does not keep a ledger account of his debtors. A cash 
sale is so recorded in the journal, the only book he keeps. Charge ac- 
counts are kept on order blanks. The order blank Itself is kept, stuck 
on a file until the end of the month. When it is a retail order, deliv- 
ered to someone besides the purchaser, only one blank is filled in. 
When it is a direct-to-purchaser, wholesale or retail order, the order is 
always made in duplicate, the florist using a pad like that used in the 
dry goods stores. The carbon copy goes on the file. At the end of the 
month the file is cleaned off, the orders sorted and the bills itemized by 
date. A list of these bills with the amounts is made and the orders 
with delivery instructions are filed away in letter-cases until the bill is 
paid. Then the bill is checked off the list of bills receivable, the cash- 
received-entry is made in the journal, and the order-blank destroyed. 
Not much trouble, but systematic. * 
Stock Taking 
This florist’s year ends when many of the big corporations of the 
country end theirs, the fiscal year of the Government, on June 80. 'His 
greenhouse and his stocks are lowest then, and he can more easily take 
an inventory. His stocks, that is his growing plants, he values accord- 
ing to his estimate of the labor and materials used in bringing them 
to their present condition. Everything else can be assigned a real 
value, but the growing plants are assets, paid for in the charges of the 
previous year as far as they have developed. This way he reaches the 
value he places on his rooted cuttings, seedlings, etc. The difference 
between the total expenses for the 3 'ear, plus the depreciation and 
interest charges, and the receipts and bills due him, added to the results 
shown by the inventory, show this grower — he allows himself a salary 
