Keeping: Farm Accounts.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 223, 8 October 1887, Page 3

Keeping: Farm Accounts.

We have frequently pointed; Qtxb in The Farmer the.- value of keeping faim accounts. Even if these are kept so as to show what the farm hew dPO6 in a, eeas.e>«, as a whole they would be found, vev,y useful as a guide to tiie farmer ; but i.t is, still better to know how each particular pQjifcipu. of the year's operations jias turned Qub financially. Upon this sjabjeet a wr.iter trnl\j says :— "In order to k.now vvliat crops are paying* best, it is necessary that a fanner should keep an account, with, each field on his fa*!. in. If he' w,ei;e to have a general acqpunt, he could tell at the year's end whether ho, had i»At\e or lost, but precisely where the gain or. loss.can.ie from, he could not know with a.uy degree of certainty. He might lose saouay on corn, while tlie profit realised from wheat would be sufficient to over-balance this loss. If he keeps a recoid with the corn-field, and another with the wheat-field, ho can tell just what the loss or gain from each field is. "/The keeping oi field accounts necessitates the plotting of the farm, with a number for each field. This should be done in advance of the work of spring. The accounts instsad of being kept between the fai mer and another person, will be between himself and field No. 1, or 2, or 3, etc. Two small blank-books are needed in which to pvesevve the record. One, the ordinary daybook of the merchant, in which is entei ed the transactions for the day. The other, a ledger, has each page ruled for debit and credit. On the left-hand side will be entered all expenses which the cultivation of the field and the harvesting and sale of the crop occasions. The righu-hand side is for the receipts from the sale of the crops. At the head of each ledger page put the number of the field, the record of which is kept on that page. " Whenever a day's work is done on that field the cost of that work must be chavged to it. The entries of this kind in the daybock must be attended to^ evory day, or many important items are liable to be forgotten. This day-book forms a sort of diary of every day's work, and all e\penses connected therewith. Keep this diary in such a way that you know just what field the work went to, and what has been ro ceived from that field. Everything going to the field makes i , a debtor. Everything coming from the field makes the former the debtor. Thought of in this way, the keeping of the day-book is a very simple thing.