Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-01-19
HTS CROP FIGURES
The Keep Commissions Report
Says Governments Crop Es-
Inmates Are Inaccurate
BUREAUS METHODS DESCRIBED
is Made That the
Crop Estimates be DISCONTINUED, Un-
less More Accuracy Can be Had -
Alleged That the Cotton Figures are
Especially Unreliable.

Washington, Jan. 19--In a report
Keep commission, which was appoint
ed to conduct an investigation follow
ing the exposure of the cotton leak,
urges the discontinuance of the ser
vice furnished by the bureau of statis-
tics unless greater accuracy is reached
in it's estimates. The bureaus cotton
estimates in the past are declared to
have been very unreliable
Charles Hallam Keep, assistant sec
rotary of the treasury and chairman of
the commission on department meth
DDS, submitted the report to the presi-
dent. In referring this matter to the
Keep commission the president called
particular attention to a resolution
which In September last was adopted
by the New England Cotton Manu-
lecturers association, bringing into
serious question the reliability OF the
government crop reports and asking
that the matter be investigated by a
competent commission. The suggestion
that the subject be referred to the
commission of which Mr.. Keep is
chairman was made by the secretary
of agriculture, who is in his letter to
the president spoke of the steady i'm
provement in the methods of esti-
mating crops and said that, notwith-
standing these improvements, it was
not unlikely that If an outside COM
mission should look over the system
with care 1t might be able to make
recommendations of value.
Bureaus Methods Described.
The report of the committee de-
scribes in detail the method followed
by the bureau of statistics in making
its crop estimates of acreage, condi-
ton and yield. For the cotton crop
alone the bureau of statistics has
upon it's list of correspondents nearly
$4,000 persons, classified as follows:
Travelling agents, 3; state agents and
their p6ndents, 1000; county
correspondents, 500; township corre-
spondents. 10000; individual farmers,
$4,000; special correspondents 10000.
The report refers to the safeguards
to prevent leaks, which have been i'm
proved upon and materially changed
since the cotton leak of last July. The
committee says that it is difficult to
see how the system now in force can
be improved.
Inaccuracy Of Service.
The report says that in every in
stance, except, in the case of three cot
ton reports in the last six years, the
bureau of statistics estimates have
been underestimate The underes-
timating has been especially great in
the case of cereal crops and live stock.
The conclusion Of the committee is
that the methods of the bureau of
statistics must be greatly improved or
the service discontinued
Advises Disuse Of Fractions.
The report makes various sugges-
tons looking to Improvement Of the
service 1t says that crop conditions
should be expressed in percentages
without fractions, since the use OF
fractions implies larger measure OF
accuracy than can be expected of a
mere estimate and since all the figures
on which the crop estimating board
exercises its Judgment are in percent
ages without fractions.