Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1888-01-07
FARMS ANDFARMERS.
Short Talks With the Men Who Guide
the P1ow.
or General Interest toFarmers- Balancing
Accounts.

/
or General Interest toFarmers-B balancing
Accounts.
The years work is finished
how do the expense and profit accounts
stand? How many farmers can answer
that question? Has any account been
kept9 or has the farmer gone on blindly,
not knowing whether he was making any
money or not2 We fear this has been
the case with most farmers. They keep
no books, and have very vagus ideas Of
how much money has gone out, and
sometimes not very definite one of how
much has come in. Many realize, per-
haps, at the end of the year, that they
have no money; but they do not know
how much has been spent on the farm,
and how much for family purposes.
They may have empty pockets, and yet
have made money, for family expenses
may have consumed it all. Now, this is
very unsatisfactory. If one is not max
ing any money farming he ought either
to change his methods or quit the bust
ness. Sometimes farmer makes money
at one point in his farming operations
and loses it at another. Sometimes he
makes with one crop and loses with an
other Sometimes he clears money on
one field and loses it on another. But
how is he to know this without keeping
accounts. ? There is nothing that would
open the eyes of a farmer more than
keeping accounts-nothing that would
lead him more surety into the right meth
DDS. Others may agree with him that he
is losing money, but he is not convinced
He loves his farm; it is his own; he has
] faith in his land and faith in himself, too.
Everything predisposes him against being
convinced But let him keep his own
figures and the case is entirely changed
1t is self against self, and his eyes are
much more easily opened. Other peoples
figures lie, but his do not. Men will be-
lieve in their own things. Each
ones watch keeps the true time.
Each ones gun shoots the best. The on :
ly course, therefore, is to get self against
self; and this in the farmers case is at
] tanned by getting him to keep accounts
to have his own figures offset each 9th
er. In this way he may be convinced;
and convictions once secured, there will
be no farther difficulty. If a farmer is
perfectly satisfied that he is losing ON
any operation, he will quit it. The trou-
Bile is, he is rarely convinced. He may
tell others there is no money in cotton,
but deep down in his heart he believes
there is. He may admit to himself that
he made no money on it some particular
year, but the fault was not in the cotton
crop. 1t was too wet or cold spring,
too dry or too wet a summer, too wet or
too cool fall, frost came too early.
There is always something that shields
his pet from censure.
If a farmer has kept no books it is still
possible for him to get at the facts.
Sometimes it is. The merchants keeps
books for some farmers; they buy every
thing nearly on credit, and itemized ac-
counts of their merchants will bring the
years transactions pretty well before
them. Let them get that and study it.
! On the one side are the advances and
purchases, on the other the credits by
cotton, etc. 1t will be pretty fair rep
resentation of the years work on the farm
as whole. 1t may not bring out, how
ever, the comparative results from differ
ent fields. This is one of the most i'm
portant items On many and many
farm the profits from good field go to
pay the losses on poor one. Rich bot
tom lands produce corn and fodder to
feed mules 10 cultivate poor uplands that
do not pay the costs of cultivation. One
field of cotton may make from a half to
three-quars of bale to the acre; anoth-
er from fourth to third of a bale to
the acre. Had he cultivated the first
/ Ouil lllc WOuiu nave ulhuC nuiiiC
clear money, but when he cultivated the
second also, he lost as much as he made
on the first. On one field the guano he
applied paid him handsome profit; on
another it did more harm than good.
But as the cotton from both is put into
common heap, the farmer does not rea-
lize this. Don't you think that many a
field would be thrown out to rest, or
sown in grain, if the owner had kept a
strict account with it. and found at the
end of the year that he had spent more
on it than the crop returned hima The
trouble is, that in the absence ofaccounts
the farmer does not realize this; he is re-
luctant to believe his land is SO poor he
thinks better Of it; he gives it the ben
fit Of the doubt; he will not bring in
verdict Of quiltv. migtrial IS annOunc-