| Show THE FARM BUSINESS that the farmers of the country are adopting more and more the practice of analyzing their business carefully and using this analysis in keeping books was wa 8 brought out recently in the hearings il S on the agricultural appropriation pria tion bill before the house committee the office of farm management of the department of agriculture has provided in farmers bulletin no blackb for use in analyzing a farm b business si in such a way that the farmer can readily ascertain the various sources from which he derives his income the ways ill iii which he spends his money the total income from the farm and the amount which should be charged off for interest on his investment county agents it was said make much use of this bulletin 4 they take it to the farm farmer r sit down wn with him and work out with him a complete ani analysis lysis of his business so that he is able to see exactly in what ahat respects he is losing money and in what respects he is m making aking it furthermore ther Ither more these blanks blank s are frequently used when farr farmers ners write to the department for advice and and assistance in n such cases it is customary to send the inquirer the bulletin with the ra request for him to analyze with its aid his business the information thus allus obtained is compared with similar information on file in the department and the specialists in the office of farm management are thus enabled to point out the mistakes which are ea causing using trouble in any one in individual case it may be found for example that a dairyman is spending from three to four times as much money for labor as other farmers conducting business on a similar scale to secure the necessary data that enable the department to determine whether or not a farm er is conducting his busi bubines nags s of ench ech oneff these made by trained experts they ascertain what the investment is how much of it is in land and buildings and how much in live stock machinery feed supplies etc the production of the farm i in n crops and live stock is next studied and the returns from the sales of all products ascertained the survey also include an estimate of the amount of depreciation of the buildings work stock machinery etc on the farm with this information it is possible to determine approximately what the average farmer in that section is doing and when this average is compared with individual cases it is possible to throw light on why the prosperous farmer is succeeding and why his less fortunate neighbor is not at ty fy one i third hird of the farmers who have been I 1 induced n to analyze their bus business iness in this way it is said are now keeping books hitherto many farmers have been discouraged from this by the apparent complexity p of the systems emp to y ed by simplifying these systems so that the farmer can tell what the figures are all about and how to use them the department part ment is greatly increasing the amount of bookkeeping being done on the farms of the country |
