Glacier County chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1931-1940, 1940-08-02
Montana Farm Statistician
Answers Variety of Queries

How many horses suitable for cav
airy duty are there in Montana?" the
United States army recently inquired
Of the Helena office of the federal
agricultural marketing service.
1t didn't bother Jay Diamond, federal
senior agricultural statistician of Hell
ena, and his staff the least bit 1t was
just another routine question to be
answered and the number of horses
was determined in short order without
a head being scratched or an eyebrow
raised.
Hundreds of involved posers on
whole score Of different subjects are
put to the marketing service force each
year and they have yet to come up
without the correct answer. Constantly
keeping a finger on the pulse of Mon
tana's agricultural and livestock in
dustries, the service knows practically
all there is to know about crop and
livestock conditions in the. state, and
can readily satisfy anyone needing sta
tiStics on such matters.
But replying to questions which. in
cidentally, could be answered by no
other source, is just a part, and
minor one at that, of the service rem
dered the people of Montana and other
sections of the country by the Helena
office.
Size of Schedules
In fact, when Diamond started fig
uring Just how many schedules and
releases were sent out from his office
during the past fiscal year, it became
! Increasingly difficult to see how the
statisticians ever had time to delve
into records and charts to find answers
to questions like the cavalry horse one.
From July, 1899, to June, 1910, the
/ f1ff lad
schedules, an increase of percent
compared with the year previous.
These schedules carried 1858 questions
| for their reporters to answer, per-
cent more than last year and disable
or tabulated returns showed an in
crease of II percent.
The schedules covered every con-
ceivable angle Of the agricultural and
livestock industries and pertained to
approximately l4O different items,
many repeated for each month.
The schedules included milk price,
corn utilization, commercial poultry
turkey schedule, prices paid for feed;
hog. horses and poultry disposition;
acreage cards, farm population, sugar
paid for autos and trucks. fruit utili-
cation, farm real estate, potato survey,
special apple survey, sorghum inquiry
| wheat varieties, sheep survey. census
of prices of silver mink and fox, spe-
cial chicken marketing, monthly gen.
eral schedules and monthly range and
livestock.
December Busiest Month
Busiest month for the office, as far
as the number of schedules mailed out
is concerned, was December, 10 differ
ent schedules being handled during
that period. February was the lightest
month with only eight schedules mailed
out. Seventeen were handled in June
10 in March and September and Il
in October.
A checkup of reports released during
the past year revealed that SO reports
had been sent out with a total Of
82,275 copies, approximately the same
as the previous year. There were $780,
O41 pages contained in the releases as
compared with 223,186 in the preceding
year.
statisticians, county agents, railroad
people, commercial clubs, grain trade
newspapers, business firms, seed grow
ers, grain elevators and the various
agricultural and livestock reporters
In all the releases went to 10 different
lists Of users.
Twenty-six weekly crop reports are
included in the list of releases. Among
others issued were monthly crop re-
ports, monthly range and livestock
monthly price, pig crop, cattle on feed
sheep on feed, wheat stocks, wool, cash
income, seed, turkey, livestock outlook
paper, wool outlook and fall moisture
outlook.
Increase in Inquiries
, Diamond estimated a total OF 81;