During 1945 there were 52 farms in New York State which kept Farm Cost Accounts in cooperation with the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University. The costs and returns figures from these farms cannot be presented as an average for all farms in the state, because the number of cooperators is so small. Nor are these 52 cooperators selected as "average" or “typical” farmers but rather because of their willingness and ability to keep accurate and complete records, the type of farm they operate, and the section of the state in which they are located. As a group the Cost Account farms are larger, more productive and more skillfully managed than the average of the New York farms. Therefore, the results from the analysis of the records serve as useful standards of comparison. Farmers who can produce as well as or better than the average of the Cost Account group are likely to be successful. The Cost Account studies are also useful in providing comparisons of costs and returns among the different enterprises on the same farms and in determining the relative proportions of the various costs which make up the total for each enterprise.