Connecticut western news., 1900-04-05
GETTING THE FARM CENSUS.


 sus Office in fifteen months from abso- lutely nothing to an efficient machine, employing about three thousand men in Washington and about fifty thousand elsewhere in the country, is difficult task, and entire success is out of the question. The office naturally compares itself with the stage of prep, ration attained at the same period ten years ago and tried by this test, it has gained several month on its predecessor. One of the problems before it is how to put m 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 any vi here in the CensusOfhce Farmers, as class, do not keep their accounts as we'll as manufacturers, and the returns from farmers may occasion ally include serious errors which train- ed eye will at once detect, Hence the farm schedules must be examined and such errors corrected before the tables can be made ID from them with safety. | If a farmer reports that his land sown to wheat was ten acres and the yield four ! thousand bushels, 1t is clear than an av- craze yield of four hundred bushels to | the acre is incredible, and must be re- | iected or corrected in accordance with | the probabilities Sometimes the truth can be made out by an expert from com- parison with entries in other parts of the schedules; sometimes correspondence | must be opened to settle the doubt All this ranks under the general head of | verifying the schedules, and the Agri- cultural Division plans to give all the time possible to the work of verifying each of the millions of farm schedules 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 guidea.hem. For ex- ample, they might be told: When the wheat reports show product of over forty bushels to the acre. they are sus. picious and must be laid aside for an ex- pert to pass upon. But any such rules must vary with the section of the coun- try. A yield of twenty bushels in one section might be more questionable than a yield of forty bushels in another. Hence the division must fix in advance what is the range of reports in each part of the country and for each crop tha, may be accepted as probable on tken face and not requiring special examina
 tiop. To get the limits of probability for this purpose for each county in the United States, that is, the maximum and minimum yield and the maximum and minimum price which may be ac cepted without verifcation, is the object of an extensive correspondence now be ing carried on by the Agricultural Divis ion under the direction of Mir G. IL Pow
 CTS Chief Ststistician in charge of tha
 division. Three simple schedules have
 been prepared and printed on different colored paper in order that they may bt readily distinguished one from another One of them covers ordinary garder vegetables, second covers fruits. anC
 the third the great staple field crops
 Each asks about the units of measur,
 employed aud the net price realized
 aud the two more important schedules
 those for staple field products and fol
 vegetables, ask for the highest and low
 est yield of each crop per acre
 These schedules are being mailed tt
 prominent farmers all over the country
 and in many instances returns have al
 ready been received, When the return
 have been received and tsbulated,
 scheme will be made from them of wha
 is to be accepted as correct in eacl
 case and what is to be probed farther
 The only aim of tLe office is to get wha
 was really the intention of the farmer il
 in answering the question, If the pre-
 sumption is strongly against his meaning
 what the schedule says, the office vii try to learn by correspondence from th
 Supervisor, or Euumerator, or tn farmer himself what the real facts were
 If the farming public will continue t cooperate with the heartiness airead, displayed, this effort will result in more trustworthy census of farms tha
 has ever been taken Farmers, as a clas are less able to cooperate than the rep resentatives of any other great industry Hence the Census Office can do nor
 for them than it can for centralized line
 of business, which can and do mak
 their own investigations, and it will d.
 its best to present full and accurat photograph of this leading occupation
 The Director of the Census urges every
 one interested to aid the work.