To make the home profitable, there must be some system of bookkeeping instituted, no matter how simple, also there must be some ingenuity exercised about marketing. Take advantage of the long evenings to start books and lay plans for the disposal of surplus products to the best advantage. Unless you know what each animal costs to keep, and what returns you are receiving from it, you can’t be sure what your profits really are. I know how most amateurs hate to be bound down to the actualities of a balance-sheet with its cold facts on what it costs to produce this, that or the other thing. But experience has taught me that it is the crucial point and must be ascertained. Your accounts need not be elaborate but they must be clear and accurate. Establish some simple system of bookkeeping and after you have once overcome prejudice and made the plunge, it is really gratifying to know, for a positive fact whether things are really paying or not. The first step toward general order is keeping records of individual animals or flocks, as the case may be, and also of the farm and garden crops. Bestow a name or number upon each animal, and if you are going in for husbandry in an extensive way, have a book for each variety. If only two or three animals are to be kept, a general stock-book will do. Each field and meadow should be named or numbered, and a book devoted to work done on each. Poultry also needs a special book; so do expenses. My plan is to head a page in the cattle register with the animal’s name or number; date of birth or purchase, with price; followed by when bred, to whom, when due, actual date of event, sex of offspring and name or number bestowed upon it. On the opposite page, if the animal is a cow, the amount of milk she gives, a week after calving, and at one measuring every month until we cease milking her. Milk is tested for butter-fats once in every three months and the result recorded. The record of pigs and sheep is not so elaborate, because, of course, there is only breeding and arrival of offspring to be noted. For poultry, the number of pens heads the page, followed by the number of birds it contains, and the individual numbers, and on the opposite page the number of eggs gathered each week. The feed-book contains the amount of grain, etc., used for each variety of stock. The farm-book is kept in a like manner, the field number heading the page; then, when ploughed; how and to what extent fertilised; with what variety of seeds sown; number of times cultivated, when harvested and the amount of the crop.