Eureka weekly sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1887-1902, 1900-04-07
What the Agricultural Division
Is Striving to Accomplish
for Its Branch.
OBJECT OF THE SCHEDULES SENT OUT
The Director of the Census
Urges All Interested to
Cooperate.


absolutely nothing to an efficient
machine, employing about 8, 900 men
in Washington and about $4,000
elsewhere in the country, is a diff
cult task, and entire success is out
OF the question. The Office natural
ly compares itself with the stage OF
preparations attained at the same
period ten years ago, and tried by
this test, it has gained several months
on its predecessor. One of the
problems before il is how to put in
the time thus secured in such a way
as most to benefit the Census.
In the Agricultural Division the
need of time for preliminary work
is perhaps as great as anywhere in
the Census Office. Farmers, as a
class, do not keep their accounts as
we'll as manufacturers, and the re-
turns from farmers may occasionally
include serious errors, which the
trained eye will at once detect. Hence
the far N schedules must be examined
and such errors corrected before the
tables can be made up from them
with safety. II O farmer reports
that his land sown to wheat was ten
acres and the yield 1000 bushels. i.
is clear that an average yield of 400
bushels to the acre is incredible, and
must be rejected or corrected accord.
ing to the probabilities. Sometimes
the truth can be made out by an ex-
pert from comparison with entries in
other parts Of the schedules; some
times correspondence must be opened
to settle the doubt. All this ranks
under the general head of verifying
the schedules, and the Agricultural
Division plans to give all the time
possible TO the work of verifying
each of the millions of farm sched
ules. To accomplish this in the time
allowed, the work of several hundred
clerks will be required, and they
must have hard and fast rules to
guide them. For example, they
might be told: When the wheat re-
ports show q product of over forty
bushels to the acre, they are suspic-
ious and must be laid aside for an
expert to pass upon. But any such
rules must vary with the section of
the country. A yield OF say
twenty bushels in one section
might be more questionable than
yield of forty bushels in another.
Hence the division must fix in ad-
vance what the range of reports in
each part of the country and for each
crop that may be accepted as proba-
BILE on their face and not requiring
special examination. To get the
limits of probability for this purpose
for each county in the United States,
that is, the maximum aud minimum
yield, aud the maximum and mini
mum price which may be accepted
without verifcation, is the object of
an extensive correspondence now
being carried on by the Agricultural
Division under the direction of l.. G.
Powers, chief statistician in charge
of that division. Three simple
schedules have been prepared and
printed on different colored paper
in order that they may be readily
distinguished one from another. One
of them covers ordinary garden veg
etables, the second covers fruits. and
the third the great staple field crops.
Each asks about the units of
measure employed and the net price
realized, and the two more impor-
tant schedules, those for staple field
products and for vegetables, ask for
the highest and lowest yield of each
crop per acre. These schedules are
being mailed to prominent farmers
all over the country and in many in
stances returns have already been
received. When the returns have
been received and tabulated, a
scheme will be made from them OF
what is to be accepted as correct in
each case and what is to be probed
farther. The only aim of the office
is to get what was really the inten'