The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1913-12-16
w. Il. Gold Plans
Simple System
of Farm Accounts
Redwood County Banker Talks to
Corn and Alfalfa Convention at
Morris
Farmers Must Establish Credit And
Some Form of ''Profit-and-
Loss" Record
Advocates Starting With Simple Sys-
tenn That Will Evolve into Com
pick One
(By w. H. Gold.)

1t is a healthy sign of the times in
which we live, that more or less Sys-
tematic Accounts be kept of every
kind of business or effort. We are
finding in these days that the way to
real Leadership begins at the bottom
of the ladder, and as rule, the
Leader finds himself while employed
with the spade or in the workshop
Of industry.
It does not take long for a think
ing man with leadership possibilities
in him to discover that hard work
and muscle are not his only assets,
and very often not his best assets. I
realize that nothing will tal0e the
place of hard work and being always
on the job on the farm. ~
But successful farm management is
absolutely necessary if the farmer
wants to make any Roadway. Too
many farmers have worked long and
hard, and have scarcely anything to
show for their toll, and had it not
been for advancing land values, many
a farmer would be almost penniless
today, and during these years of great
manufacturing and commercil activi-
ty, the movement from country to
city would have been far greater.
The great activity on the part of
national and state government in
bringing better plans of management
and systems of farming to us during
recent years is now bearing its fruit,
and we are trying to help ourselves
through such agencies as the State
Development Associations, and the
County Agent Movement. Permit me
to divert from my subject just min
ute to say this;
I believe the time is ripe for every
county in every State in the Union
to give 100000 annually to the sup
port of this movement to be supple
mented by a similar amount from
each state to every county and by
the same amount from our national
government to every county in the
United States.
They tell us our population will
double during the next 80 or 35 years.
If we do not make progress along
lines of better farm management
faster than we have the past 35 years,
there certainly will come a crisis in
70 supply and prices.
Keeping Accounts Essential
To get back to my subject, one of
the essentials of successful farm man.
agement is keeping accounts" The
farmer or business man who conducts
his business today without keeping
systematic accounts has a dozen
chances to loose out where he might
win by doing so. realize that prac-
tically all of US keep some sort of
a record of our affairs you will mark
down in your memory, if not on paper,
what the other fellow owes on or
/ what you are owing him. Some of
US are conducting farms IN Inch
some one else is interested, and we
must render an account that recuir
some bookkeeping. Others of us
have devised splendid systems of ac-
, counting that fit our farming .op"ra-z
tions very fully and much better than
what l may or can suggest here to-
day.
What I shall endeavor to do is to
suggest the simplest Of plans that
are easy to carry out and that are
just as good for the smallest farmer
and the tenant farmer as the larger
ones. And now friends, If can make
suggestions that will take very little
Of your time, will give you pleasure
in doing thems will make you money;
win build up your credit, won't you
promise me right now ,tosdo it,
I want. to say right here, we are
having y great week III Morris We
are receiving new hpIift and great
things are still to come the next few
days, but if you and I let these good
things go in one ear and out the other,
and don't try and put into actual use
the practice of things within our
reach, we had better have stayed at
home A man who continues to ig-
more and discard helpful suggestions,
begins to lose his own ingenuity and