The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1872-02-22
AGRICULTURAL.

AGRICULTURALBoo ooK-KEEPING.--
many of our ordinary farmers know
anything about profit and loss nt the
years end. And yet why should they
notY We have heard them remark at
is great bother. We know how much
money we had at the commencement of
the year, and how much at the end, and
what difference does it mako z" 1t
makes just this difference. You know
Just how you stand. Just who owes
you, and to whom you are indebted. By
your books you may tell Just what each
crop cost. Nay, what each individualit item
in the crop costs; and, therefore, are en-
abled to find at any time, and for any
series of years, the profit or loss on each
crop, and consequently what crop pays
best for one year or q series of years.
On large estates bookkeeping is very
complicated, because the farmer, having
threefold professionalism of producer,
manufacturer and merchandise deal
ings are large and necessarily more COM
plicated than those of the ordinary
farmer. One quarter of one per cent. Of
the gross sales of any farm would pay
for keeping the books, and this cost
would be decreased proportionatefy with
the increase Of the size of the farm, un-
til the estate became large enough to
employ the entire time of an account
ant, and the saving would pay the cost
ten or twenty times.
We have before us at this writing n
detailed statement, of the cost of raising
a crop of ITO acres of wheat, including
every item, from ploughing the land, to
the threshing, cleaning and delivery of
the grain to the buyer showing each in
dividual action connected with the crop.
The average profit was $5.33 47-l00 per
acre. If the farmer should keep such
an account from year to year, he would
soon see what crop or animals pay the
best, and be enabled to give his atton-
ton exclusively to that class of crops or
animals. There is no doubs but the
want of proper farm-books costs the
farmer as much as they would tho busi-
ness man, even in this one direction
alone. One trouble has been that the
books prepared for the farmer, under So
called appropriate headings, have been
faulty and intricate in the extreme. Fol
the ordinary farmer, to begin with, al
that is wanted is a simple account book
with space for complete inventory
with values, of everything on the farm
from the land down through the i'm.
provemonts, stock, fixtures, to the most
simple implement on the premises. The
value of these is the capital employed
Now everything that costs money the
farmer is debtor to, and what brings
money, must be carried to its credit. L
this is done on separate pages balance
may be shown at any time whothel
debit or credit, and soon it will become
easy to separate this into different heads
showing what the family receives anC
produces, the cost and production o
eachsfield, and crop, and by little prac
ticc the farmer will soon be enabled t,
know what anything and everything
costs about the farm, even to the min
utes details. Bookkeeping is the ground
work to success in trade, and in no in
dustry in life is it more necessary thar
to the farmer, and no farmers sol
should be considered competent to man
age farm until he understands this i'm
portant part of farm economy WesterI
Rural.