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DIFFICULTIES IN FARM ACCOUNTS. 
Farm accounts generally worthless as book 
accounts because mostly based on estimates ; 
no one can tell the precise cost or value of 
any farm product , unless all expenses for 
it are cash; illustrations ; value of farm 
accounts greatest for comparison of outlay 
and income in va?'ious products ; the 
essence of good farming; what should be 
the rate of interest on investments? What 
is the value of a calf or a cow? What 
should be the standard of value for farm 
products? Talk of book accounts with 
various crops and animals nonsense. 
I have seen the question often in our paper, 
“How many farmers can tell the exact cost of 
a bushel of grain or pound of meat as they 
produce it ?” I will answer, none. There 
never lived the farmer who knew enough to 
answer that question. No man can tell what 
it costs him to raise a bushel of grain, unless 
he rents the land and hires all the labor in¬ 
volved. No man can tell what is costs him to 
produce a pound of pork, beef or mutton, un¬ 
less he buys his feeders and all his feed and 
sells all the proceeds for cash. Neither of 
these is farming proper. It is time that this 
talk about keeping a book account with each 
crop to determine the profits of each, and 
which we should raise, and with the cows and 
the pigs to show our profit from them on pa¬ 
per, should be denominated by its proper 
name—nonsense. 
Every farmer can profitably keep a cash 
account with his business, and should keep 
strict accounts in books with every man with 
whom he deals; and,besides, he should have full 
and complete memoranda of his fields, his 
crops, his stock and all his farm enterprises. 
It is important to ascertain our profits on each 
crop or upon our dairy or our feeding animals, 
and it would be desirable to get these directly 
from book accounts, but it is not possible. All 
so-called accounts with separate crops, with 
stock, and with separate fields are so largely 
made up of items based wholly or mainly 
upon estimates that they are of no value as ac¬ 
counts. All book accounts are in terms of 
dollars and cents, and no item can 
be entered except as cash. In order to keep a 
book account which shall show the gain or 
loss of any enterprise, the cost of production 
and the proceeds at one’s disposal must both 
be known in dollars. There must be no doubt 
about the cash equivalent of every item. With 
most farm operations this is impossible, and 
most of the values must be estimated. No es¬ 
timate should enter a book account, unless it 
can be mathematically demonstrated to be 
absolutely correct. 
No farmer knows or can know the exact 
cost in dollars of any product of the farm, 
nor the proceeds that he realizes from it un¬ 
less he sells it for cash. It always takes at 
least two men, the buyer and the seller, to fix 
the exact cash equivalent of any commodity. 
Cost and proceeds are so near together that if 
estimates are allowed to enter a book ac¬ 
count, the balance indicating gain or loss will 
often be thrown to the one side or the other 
according to the judgment^ the book-keeper. 
The same feeding experiment will often show 
a gain when the account was kept by one man; 
while it might show a decided loss if it had 
been kept by another with different opinions 
as to values. 
Let me illustrate by a few examples. I 
want to know if I can raise a cow cheaper 
than I can buy her. I am going to raise one 
from a calf and by a strict account know 
what she cost me. My account looks like this. 
Cr. 
Calf 
Dr. 
To 
Cost at birth, 
2 
Value 
of milk eaten, 
77 
77 
” grain ” 
77 
” hay ” 
77 
77 
” pasture ” 
?7 
?7 
labor ” 
) 
” manure produced by, 
” the cow, 
* 
n 
This strikes me as being very expressive, 
but rather indefinite. Let us consider the 
items and fix values and remove these ques¬ 
tion marks. What did the calf cost at birth? 
Evidently something. How much? How shall 
we find out? Shall we charge the calf 
with the cost of keeping the mother since she 
went dry? That would be too mnch, for she 
has been preparing for a season’s labor at the 
pail. Shall we charge half of it? If not, how 
much? How much milk did the little thing 
drink before it was weaned and how much did 
the milk cost a quart? What did the grain 
and hay cost that it ate? We can tell if we 
buy it, but what is it worth if we raise it? Is 
there any difference between the cost of a 
thing we raise and the worth of it if we con¬ 
sume it? What was its pasture worth? We 
can tell if we hire it; but if I furnish it my¬ 
self does it cost me less or more? What is the 
labor worth that it took to raise it? On the 
credit side are two items. What is the man 
ure worth that it made and shall it all be 
credited to the calf? Last of all, now that it 
is a cow, what is the value of the beast? Is it 
what she cost or what she will sell for, or is it 
based on what she can earn for us? 
Now, good farming does not consist in buy¬ 
ing all feed for cash, and selling the animals 
fed and the manure made for money; but 
rather it consists in raising a variety of grain 
and forage and converting the most bulky 
into more condensed and valuable forms—as 
milk or meat. What are the hay, grain and 
straw worth? Are they worth what they 
cost, or what they will sell for, or what they 
can be made to bring us by feeding? Shall 
we charge the stuff against our cows and 
beeves at the market price, or at cost? I will 
grant that an account which contains estimat 
ed values may show the comparative results 
of two feeding experiments, and will show 
which paid the better profit; but neither is 
absolutely correct, and neither can give the 
exact gain or loss. To explain: If we feed our 
hay to cows and call it worth $10 per ton, 
and find we realize more from it than if it is 
fed to steers for beef at the same price, it 
proves that it is better to convert our hay 
into milk than into meat, providing the man¬ 
ure is of equal value. Even this does not 
prove whether hay is worth for either pur¬ 
pose $10 per ton, or more or less. Suppose I 
have a dairy of 10 cows, from which I make 
butter, and attempt to keep an account that 
I may know the profit in the business; the 
account will look at the end of the year about 
as follows: 
Cows 
To 
n n 
ii ii 
D ii 
ii ii a 
depreciation in value 
interest on above 
By 
value of calves » 
proceeds from butter, known 
” sales, known 
” refuse milk ? 
” manure ” 
Increase in value »» 
Interest on above » 
Total gain or loss ? 
Dr. 
cows, 
? 
hay, 
77 
grain, 
7? 
pasture, 
77 
labor, 
7) 
b’ld’ng & app’r’t’s known 
Like the calf account, this is a remarkabl 
collection of unknown quantities. Of all th 
15 items involved three only can, by any pos 
sible means, be known in the ordinary cours 
of events upon the farm. I cannot tell th 
cost of my cows unless I buy them. I do no 
know what my hay, grain, or pasture cost me 
I cannot tell just how much human energy i 
expended in caring for these cows. W 
are busy at other things most of the day, ant 
this is one of the “ chores.” If the housewif 
makes the butter, what is the labor worth 
If I have erected buildings and bought specia 
apparatus for the dairy, I know their cost, bu 
what part of it should be charged to the cow 
each year ? Should interest on the cost b 
reckoned at the legal rate ? Evidently more 
for it is not a permanent investment. Th 
buildings and apparatus will need to be re 
placed some time, and a portion of the firs 
cost ought to be charged up each year. 
The cows should be credited with the valui 
of their calves at birth, but I have alread] 
shown that we do not know how much the] 
cost or whether they are worth all they cost oi 
less or more. We know the proceeds of th< 
butter that is sold, but what about the butter 
milk, and cream used in the family? Whai 
are the skimmed milk and the buttermill 
worth? If I lived near the city I should sel 
them both, but they are not quoted high ir 
country markets. I shall be obliged to feec 
them; shall it be to pigs or to calves? 
Another thing, these cows have eaten a great 
quantity of grain, hay, stalks, and straw (oi 
which I do not know the cost or the value) and 
a great pile of manure has accumulated; what 
is it worth? Is it worth what it cost, or is it 
worth what of increase of crops it will produce \ 
Shall I sell it and find how much it is worth? 
Bear it in mind that no man has ever yet so¬ 
berly given the value of manure in dollars and 
cents. Tables exist fixing values for potash, 
ammonia, etc., but they are based upon their 
cost when bought in the market, not their 
value as fertilizers. Do they cost less or more 
in farmyard manure, and will the effect they 
are able to produce upon crops pay for the 
cost? Candidly I do not know how many 
dollars my pile of manure is worth, or whether 
to place it all to the credit of the cows, or a 
part to the hay, straw, etc., consumed. Cer¬ 
tainly hay, for instance,Ttias a value for the ma¬ 
nure it will make as well as for the milk it 
will make, else we will sell it and avoid the 
labor of caring for cows. I know, in a gen¬ 
eral way, whether my herd has increased or 
decreased in value within the year, on account 
of age; but how much? Who will give me a 
rule to apply? If we don’t know what a calf 
or a cow cost, how can we assign increase or 
decrease in value on an account page? Now I 
know I can make money from 10 good cows 
because I have done it, but I can’t 
prove it from my books, It is use¬ 
less to multiply examples. The same 
difficulties present themselves in an account 
with a field or a crop. For instance, what did 
the fertilizer cost for the wheat-field : and 
what part shall be charged to the crop ? What 
is the straw worth ? These and a hundred 
other questions arise, and estimates play so 
large a part that the accounts are well-nigh 
worthless. Such an account will often answer 
for a comparison, as it might show whether 
Holsteins or Jerseys give better returns for 
like amounts of the same feed, but it could 
not show the net profits of either. 
Keeping accounts with our wheat, our corn 
and our clover to see which should be raised, 
is like a merchant keeping one with his calico, 
his silk and his muslin, to see which he shall 
keep in stocx. It is his business to keep what 
the public will buy at a reasonable price. 
From the nature of the case the farmer must 
raise a variety of products and, like the stock 
of the merctant, they should be, within a rea¬ 
sonable limit, such as the public will consume. 
He is less at liberty than is the merchant to 
vary his business to suit the law of supply and 
demand. He is concerned in producing what 
he knows the public must have, sometimes at 
good rates, often at low prices. Whether he 
shall be a producer of pork or beef, orjhay or 
wheat, is not entirely open to his choice. 
To recapitulate: Most of the so-called 
farm accounts are worthless as book accounts 
as the items are largely estimated. We cannot 
put an item into a book account until we 
know its exact equivalent in dollars. We 
have no means of knowing the exact cost of a 
thing we raise, or the exact value of what we 
do not sell. A large portion of our products 
is consumed upon the farm, and a large part 
of the food of ourselves and animals is grown 
at home. To none of these can we assign true 
values in dollars. The difficulties men¬ 
tioned are given only as instances. Others 
of a like nature confront us in any branch of 
farm enterprise when cash is not the only 
item involved. Accounts of this kind are 
valueless, except for comparison between two 
things of the same kind, or for memoranda. 
The judgment of a good man with full mem¬ 
oranda at hand is worth more, and his esti¬ 
mates based thereon will be more correct 
than will his book account, covering any 
matter where estimates lie at the basis. Suc¬ 
cess hinges on many subtle elements that 
never enter either side of a book account, and 
while book-keeping is as valuable for the 
farmer as for any business man, it should be 
confined where it properly belongs. Neither 
is it the crucial test of success upon the farm. 
E. DAVENPORT. 
COMBINED ICE AND MILK-HOUSE. 
Such a building suitable for a dairy of 10 
cows can be built at a cost of a trifle less than 
$25. This price is for lumber at $10. per 1,000 
feet at the mill, and does not include labor. 
Outside dimensions, 10 by 18 feet and eight 
feet in hight to the eaves. All the uprights are 
of one size—2x10—and set two feet apart, edge¬ 
wise; the siding is nailed to one edge, the lining 
to the other, making a dead-air space of 10 
inches. The roof is of one-inch stuff 12 
inches wide and 20 feet long, laid like clap¬ 
boards lapping about an inch and a half on 
two by four rafters, set with a steep pitch, and 
is also lined. A partition of inch stuff is run 
through the center to the hight of the eaves, 
making the ice-house eight feet square, and the 
milk-room the same size. The floor of the ice¬ 
house which slopes towards one corner of 
milk-room, is made of clay, rammed hard, 
covered with six inches of gravel and then 
with four Inches of sawdust. The ice is laid 
directly upon this flooring and is piled up to 
the eaves and surrounded with the usual pack¬ 
ing of six inches of sawdust. Ventilation is 
furnished by a small window in each gable 
end; and there is also a small square box ven¬ 
tilator in the center,and these openings are pro¬ 
tected by fine wire cloth. Shelves can be built 
against the partition for shallow-setting pans. 
In the corner of the milk-room toward which 
the floor of the ice-house slopes, is placed the 
tank for deep setting, which, to hold 
five or six five-gallon cans, should be 
20 inches wide; two feet six inches long; and 
two feet deep. This depth is sufficient to ad¬ 
mit of a lid. The tank is an ordinary dry- 
goods box, caulked and treated to a coat of 
asbestos, and sunk into the ground to receive 
the drip from the ice-house, with an outlet in 
the bottom emptying into a drain, and closed 
with a plug. 
The cans are made by an ordinary tinsmith, 
of the best quality of tin, 8>£ inches in diam¬ 
eter; 19 inches deep with tight-fitting 
covers, and- little balls of solder on 
the bottoms for legs, to allow the water to 
run under them, and they have copper wire 
handles and cost 75 cents apiece. This build¬ 
ing is near the well, from which the tank can 
be filled if the drip is insufficient, or when it 
needs cleansing. The milk-room is lighted by 
an ordinary window, one sash being in the 
lining and one in the siding, the outer one 
being whitewashed or painted. I would pre¬ 
fer to have this house built of brick or stone 
with a cemented floor and a tank of brick laid 
in cement; but I give this as a possibility 
within the reach of every farmer’s pocket. 
If one has a full flowing spring the ice-house 
can be dispensed with and the same tank and 
milk-room can be used. c. p. l. 
Buffalo, W. Va. 
tttanim’* * Wffirk. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUI8E TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
Margaret E. Sangster says, in Daughters 
of America, that a mother should be careful 
what tone she uses in talking to her baby. If 
her tone is always sweet and even, her look 
one of love, she need not fear unlovely speech 
and manner in her child. It is so fatally easy 
to snap out a sharp speech when the child is 
troublesome, not because mother wishes to be 
unkind, but because her back aches and her 
limbs are weary, and life seems harder than 
usual. We all know the feeling of irritation 
that is born of over-taxed strength and disor¬ 
dered nerves. If, instead of passing it along 
with some sharp speech, the tired mother 
could but sit down for ten minutes, close her 
eyes, fold her hands and. mayhap, breathe a 
little prayer for strength and patience, it 
would surely be ten minutes gained in the 
day’s work. Such moments are not wasted, 
though they have no more appreciable result 
than a less weary body and a more equable 
mind. 
* * * 
The Art Interchange describes a dainty 
trifle to hang at a housewife’s girdle. It is 
composed of long satin ribbons, proceeding 
from a satin rosette; one ribbon ends in a 
pansy pincushion of purple and yellow plush; 
another in an acorn emery; a third suspends' 
scissors; a fourth, a satin-covered needle- book. 
This would make a pretty Christmas gift. 
Another pretty thing described by the same 
authority, is aD oblong work-basket with a 
handle passing over the top. It is made of 
heavy card- board covered with bronze mo¬ 
rocco, and lined with orange silk; inside are 
pouches and conveniences for sewing imple¬ 
ments, while the handle, where it joins the 
basket, is decorated with bows of orange 
ribbon. 
* * * 
It is not a bit too early to think about Christ¬ 
mas presents. Some sensible girls decide early 
in the year what they would like to give, and 
then buy suitable articles whenever they have 
the opportunity, and certainly it is a good 
idea. Of course, we can’t all give what we 
would like; usually our gifts are bounded by 
our purse rather than our desires. But taste, 
time and ingenuity will effect a good deal in 
this line. It always seems so much easier to 
provide a suitable gift for a woman than for 
a man. Take the matter of bags for example. 
What a latitude it offers! Every girl wants a 
laundry bag to hang inside her bed-room 
closet. Very pretty ones are made of un¬ 
bleached muslin, bound with scarlet braid, 
and further adorned by a band of coarse out¬ 
line embroidery in red across the bottom. 
They may be made either square or rounded, 
but they should always have a stick run 
across the top to prevent the bag from 
sagging when hung up. Dark-colored 
cretonne or percale, bound with bright-colored 
braid, would, of course, keep clean longer than 
the unbleached muslin. 
* * * 
feoME of the prettiest fancy duster bags are 
made in the form of a long, old-fashioned 
purse—that is to say, the bag is almost like a 
scarf in shape, with an opening about the mid¬ 
dle of .one side., 1 ,Two rings—curtain rings will 
