The Delta independent., 1924-12-12

common thing on Delta county farms
is a system of keeping accounts. A
farmer feels that there are more i'm
portant things to do than to put down
few figures to show what has been
expended And yet there are no com
mercial concerns of any Importance
which do not hire one and maybe
more people who do nothing but keep
books 1t is safe to say that if a
farmer would take on hour or one
half hour a day from his daily lab
ors and put it on a record of the
accounts of each department and of
each crop he will be ahead financially
in a years time. This is a time of
head farming as much as of back
or strong-arm farming, and the sue
cessful farmers are the ones who can
strike a happy medium between the
two A head farmer cannot expect
to get away from his manual labor,
and yet he can use his head to the
extent of directing his physical eff
forts. If his records will show that
beets are a better paying crop year
after year than spuds then he should
put his effort into beets instead of
'spuds
A bookkeeping system on the farm
does not need to be elaborate. An
elaborate system may appear well and
in its infancy will be successful; but
it soon may become bunglesome and
will then be worse than useless. In
stead of attempting to keep an elab-
crate set of books it is much wiser
to have a simple set that will always
be up to date, than to have a set that
is so complex that it will take too
much time to keep it up to date and
therefore it will always be incom-
plete.
A day book should be the book
around which a system is built. In
this should be kept a complete record
of all time spent on any one job and
also a record of the money taken in
or paid out. 1t is unnecessary to di-
vide day book up into departments
as it is simpler and quicker to merely
list these things in the evening or
during the day at any time most con-
NtLithls - bOOh htDl III lLlS way
might read as follows:
December S-Repairing gate, man
hrs, horse hours.
To dairy..4 man hours.
To hogs-1 man hours.
To hauling manure to oats, man
hours, 10 horse hours.
To bolts for gate-5O cents
To cream-s15.OO.
In this system each item is listed
regardless of order and more for CON
venience. AS will be seen it offers
no order. This makes necessary a
book where orderly records are kept
and it is here that a ledger, a book
provided with columns for debiting
and crediting, comes into use. And
perhaps this is the most complicated
part of the system. though even here
simplicity should be the aim.
In the ledger there should be a
double sheet devoted to every de-
partment on the farm, such as dairy
ing, hogs, poultry, horses, oats, al
falfa, wheat beets, onions, etc. The |
NNNbiO oAi'0b " III llldht DOSSlDle tine ]
debiting and crediting of the ac-
counts. Then the plan is to debit |
everything that leaves it for instance |
in the case of "Oats" if five loads of |
manure are spread upon the field |
where the crop is to be grown that
year of the following, then "Oats"
will be debited with:
naaar,, 1
man hours, 10 horse hours, s..
And the account of Dairy" for the |
manure was taken from the dairy.
would be credited with 5 loads of
manure because the manure was TAX
en- from it.
If this plan is followed then it is
the credit side of the ledger which |
shows the profit of a department in
stead of the debit side as is common |
in most instances. In addition to the |
departments as above it may be more /
desirable to make two double pages |
for each department and to devote |
one to the accounts of receipts and |
and the second to the
accounts of labor. Perhaps this will |
give little more of comparison of |
the departments as it does away with !
money values in the case of labor. |
the price of which fluctuates to such
an extent.
In any system which might be
worked out the effort should be made
to simplify the whole task and at the
same time to show the farmer just
what each department is doing for
the farm.