Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1914-02-26
NORTH DAKOTA CROP
YIELD M|SSTATED
GOVERNMENT REPORTS GROSSLY
INACCURATE.
"A Difference of 5O,OOO,OOO Bushels
in State and Governments
Estimates.

in State and Government
Estimates.
Bismarck, Feb. 19.-Commissioner
of Agriculture Gilbreath has taken
up the matter Of government crop re-
ports for this state, and has gathered
facts from reliable sources to show
the discrepancy between the careless
and inefficient methods of collecting
statistics by the government, and
those by the commissioner of agri-
culture for the state. Commissioner
Gilbreath says:
When difference of more than
$5O,000,000 in a total of less than
$16O,00O,0O0, is found in statements
purporting to be official statistics re-
lating to the agricultural products
of state, there is surely something
radically wrong in the methods en-
ployed to arrive at one or other of
the different results. Yet this is the
amount of difference that exists be-
tween the government estimate of
crop values for North Dakota in 1913
and that of the state department of
agriculture. According to the gov
'ernment figures the value of that crop
was 1000, while carefully
compiled estimate of the state de-
partment, based upon personal in
terview with every farmer in the state
places the value at $156,566,213.
In claiming that the government
estimate is grossly inaccurate, is bas-
ed upon insufficient data and utterly
fails to give the state due credit for
at least one-third of it's actual pro-
duction in 1913, attention is called to
the fact that this is by no means the
first time that federal statisticians
have bungled their figures, by over
estimation in some cases and under
estimation in others. 1t is perhaps
an accident, but, in the light of this
latest performance, rather significant
that North Dakota should have been
the sufferer in both instances, and
our sister state of Minnesota the
gainefSby comparison. A specific ex>
ample will best illustrate how North
Dakota has been belittled in the past
and the more eastern state credited
with prosperity that later show nev-
er to have existed.
In December, 1909, the department
of agriculture at Washington stated
in the Crop Reporter''-the official
organ of the department-that the
yield of spring wheat in Minnesota
for 1909 was 94,0SO,0O0 bushels, and
9O,762,0OO bushels in North Dakota.
1t should be remembered that this
was the same year for which the CEN
sus enumerators gathered crop statis-
tics in the spring of 1910, and that
the agricultural department derives
it's information from the guesses of
few correspondents, while the CEN
sus officials actually visited and talk
ed with every farmer in both states.
In March, 1912, when the final fig
ures of the census bureau for the crop
of 1909 became available, it was
found that the yield of wheat in Min
nesota for that year was only 57,-
094,0O0 bushels, instead of 94,OS0,-
900 bushels as formerly published
broadcast by the department of ag-
riculture, and that the yield in North
Dakota for the same year was 116,-
$4,000 bushels instead of 9O,762,-
900 as published at the same time.
These figures show errors of 33,66S,-
900 bushels in favor of Minnesota
and 26,020,OOO bushels unfavorable
to North Dakota, showing, nearly
three years after the false statement
was sent broadcast throughout the
world, that North Dakota raised 59,-
6SS,O00 bushels more of wheat in
1909 than did Minnesota, instead of
8 3,31s,000 bushels less, as published
in December, 1909. A further study
of the "Crop Reporter" shows that
the department of agriculture admit
ted their error, for we find in future
of crop yields that the
census figures have been adopted in
toto. In short, this ponderous ag-
gregation for the distribution of mis-
calmly, deliberately and
with every indication Of liking it,
swallowed a 6O,0OO,O00 bushel error
the batting of an official eye
or the least culver in the smooth
of bureaucratic incompe-