Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1900-04-05
WORK OF THE CENSUS,

absolutely nothing to an efficient
machine, employing about thrc,
thousand men in Washington an(
about fifty thousand elsewhere il
the country, is a difficult task, ant
entire success is out of the question
The office naturally compares itself
with the stage of preparation at
tanned at the same period ten years
az" and tried by this test, it has
gained several months on it's prcdc
ccSsor One Of the problems before
1t is how to put in the time thus sc.
cured in such a way as most to bcnc.
fit the census.
In the agricultural division tho
need OF time for preliminary work is
perhaps as great as anywhere in the
census Office. Farmers, as class
do not keep their accounts as well as
manufacturers, and the returns from
farmers may occasionally include
serious errors which trained eve
Will ut once detect. Hence the farm
schedules must be examined and
such errors corrected before the
tables can be made up from them
with safety. II a farmer reports
that his land sOwn to wheat was ten
acres and the yield four thousand
bushels, it is clear that an average
yield of four hundred bushels to the
acre Is Incredible, and must be re.
jcctcd or corrected in accordance
with the probabilities. Sometimes
the truth can | made out by an cx-
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 schcd
ulcs. To accomplish this in the time
allowed, the work of several hun
drcd 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 a product of over forty
bushels to the acre, they arc suspi-
cious and must be laid aside for an
expert to pass upon. But any such
rules must vary with the section Of
the country. \ yield Of twenty
bushels in one section might be more
questionable than yield Of forty
bushels in another Hence the d.
vision must fix in advance what is
the range OF reports in each part Of
the country and for each crop that
may be accepted rs probable on their
lace and not requiring special cxami-
nation. 10 get the limits Of proba.
billty Tor this purpose for each
county in the United States, that is,
the maximum and minimum Weld
and the maximum and minimum
pr'ce which may be accepted with
out vcrllIcatlon, is the object Of an
extensive correspondence now being
carried on by the agricultural divis-
ion under the direction Of Mr.. l.. G..
Powers, chief statistician in charge
OF that division. Three simple
schedules have been prepared and
printed on different colorcd paper in
order that they may be readily dis
tngulshcd one from another. One
OF them covers ordinary garden vcgc-
tables, a second covers fruits, and
the third the great staple field crops.
each asks about the units of mca-
sure employed and the net price
realized, and the two more IMPORT
ant schedules, those for staple field
products and for vegetables, ask for
the highest and lowest yield Of each
crop per acre. These schedules arc
beng mailed to prominent farmers
all over the country and in many in
stances returns have already been re-
ccivcd. When the returns hovc
been received and tabnlatcd, y
scheme Will be made from them Of
what IS to be accepted as correct in
each case and what is to be probcd
farther. The only aim Of the Office
IS to get what was really the intcn-
ton Of the farmer in answering the
questions. II the presumption is
strongly against his meaning what
the schedule says, the Office will try
to lo II ny correspondence from the
supervisor, or the cnumcrat0r, or the
farmer himself what the real facts
were.
II the farming public will continue
to cooperate with the hcartincss al
ready displayed, this effort will re-
suit IN more trustworthy census Of
iarms than has ever been taken.
Farmers, rs 4 class, are less able to
cooperate than the representatives
ol any other great industry. Hence
the census Office can do more for
them than it can for centralized lines
OF business, which can and do make
thclr own investigations, and it will
do IT'S best to present a full and ac.
cnratc photograph of this leading
occupation. The director Of the