FARMERS AND LAND VALUES

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVIII, Issue LXXVIII, 13 June 1919, Page 5

FARMERS AND LAND VALUES

GOOD BOOK-KEEPING A GREAT

PROTECTION

Owing to the present remunerative prices of produce, due mainly to the war and the Imperial commandeer, farmers (said the cnairman of the Bank of New Zealand, this morning) are buying and selling improved lands at very high prices. With our main markets I^,ooo miles away, with new and formidable competitors in -the field, with Europe impoverished through the war, and people educated to the use of substitutes, such as margarine, it-is hardly possible that our dairy products can maintain their present values when the Imperial commandeer ends. What then will be the- position of those who have paid high prices for land and burdened themselves with heavy mortgage charges?

The value of any farm land must be determined by what can be got out of it by a competent farmer. At present this is largely a matter of guess work, and a fanner with a biased mind, may easily persuade Elmself that he can obtain better results than the farmer who is selling. What is primarily required as a guide to the real value of land is a more exact system of farm book-keep-ing No business can be successfully carried on without a proper book-keep-ing system and farming, being a business, is no exception to the rule; but it is to be feared that at present farmers' books, where kept at all, are by no means accurate and are of little use as an index to the value of the land the farmer is working, and therefor* not entirely reliable as a guide to his true financial position. The question of proper methods of farming accountancy is engaging attention in other parts of the world, and it is to be hoped in at the outcome of the consideration that it is receiving will be the evolution of a satisfactory system by which the farmer will be able to ascertain ttie true results of his operations and to determine the true value jof the land he is working, or may be ! proposing to purchase.