206 



National Resources Committee 



this census, a number of cooperative studies were made, 

 largely with Department of Agriculture funds. A par- 

 tial list of these projects is as follows: 



With AAA.- — Preparing elaborate minor civil division figures 

 for use of the AAA, Rcsettlrment Administration, and TVA ; 

 a rent survey: special tabulations of corn and potato acreage 

 and production; checli-up on crop failures in connection with 

 the crop insurance program; farm labor project. 



With Bureau of Ayricultural Econoinicx. — Poultry by size 

 of flock ; numbers of days worked off farms by farm operators ; 

 cows by size of herd ; special mortgage tabulations. 



With Dcmojistration Service. — Compiling special county and 

 township statistics to help in allotment, AAA contract en- 

 forcement, and educational work. 



With Socifil SiCiirit!) Board. — Tabulation of number of farm 

 laborers in frequency groups. 



With Farm Credit Administration. — Value of farm land 

 and buildings per acre in the United States, by minor civil 

 division. 



The methods of determining the questions to be 

 asked and the tabulations to be made on the 1940 census 

 illustrate the cooperative procedure. Following ap- 

 proval, by the joint advisory committee of the Bureau 

 of the Census and the Department of Agriculture, of 

 a trial schedule, the field force of the Department of 

 Agriculture has been trying the schedule out in a sam- 

 ple enumeration. A variety of experimental tabula- 

 tions will be made and the results will be discussed at 

 a joint meeting.^'^ Meanwhile, the Department of Agri- 

 culture has a special committee entirely of its own mem- 

 bers which has received suggestions and sifted out the 

 more pressing demands. Over 600 different questions 

 were originally proposed. The questions agreed upon 

 will be further discussed by the joint advisory com- 

 mittee. Final authority, of course, rests with the Di- 

 rector of the Census. 



In view of the remarkable strength of the Bureau of 

 Agricultural Economics in professionally trained so- 

 cial scientists and in view of the f ar-flunc: field orcani- 

 zation of the Department of Agriculture, with its more 

 than 300,000 persons, including crop reporters, there 

 have been frequent suggestions that the Bureau of the 

 Census turn over to the Department of Agriculture 

 all responsibility for the Census of Agriculture, except 

 for mechanical tabulation.^' Final responsibility for 

 approval of schedules, and for field work, tabulating 

 schemes, and publications now rests solely with the 

 Director of the Census. At least three objections have 



" This study is considering such things as wording and number of 

 questions, arrangement of the schedule, fatigue of enumerators and re- 

 spondent.s, characteristic errors and means of avoiding tliem. time, 

 costs, farmei's* reactions to questions and enumerators* bias. Talmla- 

 tion experiments wiU include a comparison of the efficiency of 45 and 

 SO column cards, the possibilities of the serial hooU-up of present ma- 

 chines, and the advantages of using combined adding machines vlth 

 unit counters. 



" The Bureau of the Census has proposed that substantially this 

 arrangement be made In annual sample censuses of agriculture If 

 authorized, but has not favored it for the quinquennial censuses. 



been offered to such change as has been proposed: (1) 

 It is not only economical, but also technically desirable, 

 to have the population schedules carried in rural areas 

 by the same enumerators as the Census of Agriculture ; 

 (2) there is a possibility that the preoccupation of the 

 Department of Agriculture with current legislation 

 wliich it must administer would preclude adequate at- 

 tention to those broader social and economic ques- 

 tions — relating to farm population, for example — 

 which are only indirectly related to immediate regula- 

 tory problems; (3) cooperation between the Bureau 

 and the Department of Agriculture seems to be im- 

 proving all the time. 



Population 



Those branches of the Bureau's activities dealing 

 with general population, and with industry and trade. 

 liave not been in as fortunate a situation for receiving 

 subsidization as its work pertaining to agriculture. 



The Division of Population, which has the respon- 

 sibility for the schedules and publications of the de- 

 cennial census of population has been aided in some 

 ways by research organizations outside the Government 

 as well as within. Particularly close working relation- 

 ships exist with the Milbank Fund and the Scripps 

 Foundation. The personal friendship and mutual re- 

 spect Avhich exists between members of the Division and 

 the staff' of these agencies, stimulates a frequent inter- 

 change of ideas and criticisms. Wlien the Bureau's 

 budgetary difficulties prevented completion of some im- 

 portant monographic studies based on the 1930 Census, 

 these agencies came to the rescue. The Milbank Fund 

 is completing a large study of family size, jjlanned by 

 Dr. Leon E. Truesdell, Chief Statistician for Popula- 

 tion in the Bureau, and the Scripps Foundation car- 

 ried out, with the aid of funds from the National Ke- 

 sources Committee, an extensive study of differential 

 fertility. Other examples of cooperation between the 

 Division and outside research persons might be cited. 

 Because Dr. Truesdell's Division has been almost liter- 

 ally starved for funds (not receiving a dollar for re- 

 search to investigate ways of improving the 1930 Cen- 

 sus) research work done outside of the Bureau is all 

 the more important to aid in the formidation of ideas 

 for 1940. Three illustrations of such research may be 

 cited, each relating to a major field in which there is 

 great need for new statistics: 



(1) MolUity.— The W. P. A. and the Michigan Emergency Re- 

 lief Commission, aided by an advisory committee of popula- 

 tion exports, are making an elaborate sample tabulation of 

 internal mobility based on the Michigan census of 1935. This 

 study is experimenting with a variety of cross-classiflcatlons, 

 with a view of making the tests as useful as possible to the 

 Bureau of the Census. 



