Norwich bulletin., 1920-01-09
THE CENSUS FARM QUESTIONABLE FOR 1920.

Written Specially for The Bulletin.
 I've just finished tilling out the queStionnaire left some days ago by the census taker, headed Limited States Census of Agriculture" It is, assume, intended to gather a lot of general farm information about the farms as on Jan. 1. 1920; and a report of farm production during 1919.
 Doubtless you other farmers have all had yours and have, most of you, broken the whole moral law into frag- n1ents in a hopeless attempt to give correct answers to a lot of fool ques tons.
 That's the only description of some of them They read as if they were dug out Of the inner consciousness of some sea-cook who never lived fifteen minutes on a real farm. There are something over two hundred of the questions, all told. Some of them can be answered readily and accurately, of-hand- Some can be answered. ac- curately enough, by farmers who em- ploy bookkeepers. Some others can be answered with reasonable truth by those farmers who keep their own hooks Some can be answered better by dsirymen than by truck gardeners. and some better by truck gardeners than by dairymen- And some can be estimated with a degree of accuracy dependent on the estiruator's iudg- nent.
 Others can be answered onlx by guessing and without any pretense at accuracy.
 For example: ] know my own name and my P. O. address. and my color and my age, and that own my farm and that 1t has no mortgage and that l have a horse and two cows and a pig and a motor truck and telephone md a few other similar things. Then ! bump up against four questions which no living man knows the cor rect answer to, viz: How many acres in the farm? How much improved land? How many acres of woodland? How much other unimproved land?
 The oriSinal nucleus of this farm was bought seventy years ago. and was then surveyed. Since then six other plots have been added to it. not one of which was surveyed, and three have been sold of. again without any survey. CThey have mostly been pas- ture or woodland about whose value owner and seller have aereed without making anv expense for surveyors Hatch lots?" ''What will YOU give?' That's been the way in which they've been bought or sold. When the deeds were passed somebody nado a guess at the area of each f-n~-re~t and in serted the guess. adding tfin saving words. Be the same more or less"
 Now how do 1 know how many acres there are in my present farm? I can make guess at it and. probably, come within ten acres of the truth. But I wouldn't swear even to that. How many acres improved land?" Under this head l ap instructed to include all land regularly titled CT moved: land !n pastures that has been cleareI or tiled etc Well I have two pastures, both of them cleared and both of them at one time or another partly sown to rye. And I will bet a good doughnut against a bad nsg that there are not ten rods of straight fencing around both of these pastures. The fences corkscrew around hills and bend around sHamps and dodge ledges and twist with the edge of the woods One of them extends completely across the farm. being laid out nrrnose'v to in- cfude two difficultlv ti'iable hills. three absolutely untillab1e Iedees, two bits of n1iry swamp. and the only spring at which pasturing animals can find water. IL has no shane or sernhiance If form It would cost more to s'1rvey IL than 1t world ever seil for. I can guess that it has ten or twelve acros in 1t and somebody else could Puess that 1t had fifteen or eighteen. Either one is as sure to be wrong es the other.
 Now. just sunoose that orI-- helf of the other farmers of the country are compelled to guess as I must in an-