Relation of the Federal Government to Research 



223 



ations. It has had to cut out some of them entirely — 

 for example, with the discontinuance of marriage and 

 divorce statistics in 1933, the United States is now al- 

 most the only civilized country in the world without 

 current national reportiui); of marriages and divorces. 

 Needless to say, it is difficult to get brand new appro- 

 priations for an activity, like research, which would 

 seem to a nonscientific mind as a frill or lusui'y. 



The Geographer's Problems 



The lack of funds for research is particularly detri- 

 mental to tlie fundamental operation of such a divi- 

 sion as that of the Geographer. The work of the Cliief 

 Geographer, Mr. Clarence Batschelet, is basic to ac- 

 curacy and completeness of enumeration of the Cen- 

 suses of Population and Agriculture. His staff must 

 determine the legal boundaries of all minor civil divi- 

 sions in the United States, must lay out the more than 

 120,000 separate enumeration districts, must obtain 

 a complete list of the 30,000 institutions for which 

 separate enumeration is necessary and must prepare a 

 separate map for each individual enumerator. The 

 boundaries of minor civil divisions are changing con- 

 stantly — more than 17,000 changes took place between 

 1920 and 1930. These changes must be discovered and 

 properly recorded on maps. 



Unfortunately, the appropriations for maps have been 

 inadequate. The Bureau does not make original maps, 

 of course, but it has lacked enough money to buy the 

 new maps which are continually being issued by public 

 and private authorities. For many areas it is still 

 using maps 20 or 30 years old, hopelessly out of date 

 m view of the rapidity of population changes. There 

 has been astonishing progress in map-making within 

 the last decade. The United States Geological Survey 

 has now covered nearly half of the United States. The 

 map program of the Bureau of Public Roads has pro- 

 gressed rapidly, with 1,025 counties completed as of 

 February 1938, on a scale of an inch to the mile, with 

 525 counties under way, and with 237 approved for 

 subsequent surveys. The Agricultural Adjustment 

 Administration has sponsored the spectacular project 

 of making aerial maps of the entire important agri- 

 cultural area of the country and 600 counties have 

 been photographed complete. Mr. Batschelet has ob- 

 tained samples of these new maps and compared them 

 with the older maps. These studies have revealed as- 

 tonishing errors and omissions in the maps which the 

 Bureau of the Census has been using. Moreover, com- 

 parisons of planimeter readings of farm acreage from 

 the new accurate surveys indicate wide discrepancies 

 from farm acreages as reported by census enumerators. 



New maps are necessary not only for carrying on the 

 enumeration by the methods used in the past, but also 



for improving these methods by a more general de- 

 velopment of farm identification. Methods of identify- 

 ing farms by the a.ssigmnent of numbers, just as houses 

 are numbered in cities, were first tried in 35 sample 

 counties in the census of 1935. The results of this ex- 

 periment justified expectations. Perhaps the greatest 

 value was the control and check it gave over the com- 

 pleteness of the enumerator's work. It would be quite 

 possible to extend farm identification to most of the 

 rural areas of the country in the 1940 census. But the 

 Bureau of the Census must first acquire accurate maps 

 and must get these maps early enough. Anotlier im- 

 portant improvement which has been sought, is the 

 more accurate definition of the boundaries of settlement 

 in iniincorporated towns and villages and city suburbs. 

 The aerial maps are almost indispensable for this pur- 

 pose. Finally, if the enumerations of urban statistics 

 are to be accurately controlled, and the data are to be 

 obtained in a form suitable for intercensal sampling, 

 it is necessary to number the city i)locks and obtain a 

 count of at least the total number of inhabitants in each 

 block. Obviously, if a Bureau's city map is 20 or 30 

 years old, it is almost useless for ])renumbering of 

 blocks — especiallj' in view of the shifts in popula- 

 tion from the declining city centers to the expanding 

 peripheries. 



After making careful cost analyses and pruning 

 away every item which he regarded as not indispen- 

 sable, the Chief Geographer asked for $300,000 for 

 the next year in order to purchase majjs and get ready 

 for the 1940 census. The entire Bureau obtained only 

 $50,000 for preparatory work on the census. Out of 

 the forty or fifty million dollars which will be ap- 

 propriated a year from now for the 1940 census, the 

 geographer doubtless will get considerably more money. 

 It will then be too late to conduct preliminary researcii. 

 In spite of the unprecedented progress of map-making 

 in the United States, the Bureau will be fortunate if 

 the maps available for enumerators on the 1940 census 

 are even as serviceable as those which permitted dis- 

 crepancies in 1930. 



Cooperative Studies in the 

 Agriculture Division 



Investigations to improve the validity of the data 

 have had a better fate in one other division of the<]!en- 

 sus— the Division of Agriculture, which is charged with 

 the responsibility for taking the Census of Agriculture. 

 As was mentioned in part II of this Section, a trial 

 schedule for the 1940 census has gone into the field, and 

 special intensive studies ai-e being made in a sample 

 county (Morrow County, Ohio), with the view of de- 

 veloping better methods of establishing farm location 

 and tabulating statistics by type of soil, distance from 



