A more reassuring source of growth comes as a result of a growth in sales but, here too, we must be careful. If the growth in sales comes about through acquisitions where large amounts of stock are given away in the purchase, this may not be true growth at all. Sales per share, rather than total sales alone, is usually the better measure of the effect upon a company of major acquisitions. As a general rule, long-term projections of earnings per share growth probably should not exceed projections of sales per share growth.