ESTIMATED NUMBER AND CHARACTERISTICS 

 OF FARMS NOT INCLUDED IN COUNTY TOTALS 



The 1978 Census of Agriculture was conducted pnmarily by mail for maximum 

 economy, supplemented by thorough personal canvass of a statistical area 

 segment sample for maximum accuracy of coverage 



The following portion of the State preliminary report is based on the area 

 segment sample, and provides estimates of the number and characteristics of any 

 farms in the S;ate not represented in the mail portion of the 1978 census The 

 sample design provided for reliable estimates for States but was not large enough 

 to provide estimates for counties Thus, any data item for 1978 in the State totals 

 portion of this preliminary report (pages 1-4) can normally be expected to be the 

 sum r' that data item as reported in the county preliminary reports plus the entry 

 for that data item in this "not allocated to counties" portion. 



Data collection for the 1969 and 1974 Censuses of Agriculture was primarily by 

 mail The mailing lists for these censuses were compiled from the previous ^e^z^s 

 and from records obtained from the Internal Revenue Service, US Department of 

 Agriculture, other government agencies, and nongovernment agriculture-related 

 associations. 



The constant change occurnng in farm operations and the time involved in 

 obtaining source lists and combining them into a final mailing list cause the list to 

 be somewhat out of date before it is used. In addition, some farm operators, 

 particularly for small operations, never appear on any of the source lists. 

 Evaluation studies for both the 1969 and 1974 censuses indicated that the lists 

 were not adequate to assure complete coverage The estimates indicate that 

 approximately 17 percent of all farms were missed in the 1969 census and 13 

 percent were missed in the 1974 census, representing about 3 percent of the total 

 value of all agricultural products sold for each of the two census years. 



Although the aggregate value of products attributable to the farms which were 

 missed was small both in terms of total products and farms reporting various 

 types of products, the undercoverage was significant especially in number of 

 farms. The dual system of data collection was implemented for the 1978 census 

 in order to minimize the effect of undercoverage on census data In addition to 

 complete coverage of a mailing list, enumerators canvassed an area segment 

 sample in each State and interviewed farm operators for census data This 

 sample was designed to provide State estimates for farms not on the mailing list. 

 Data for all farms on the mailing list were used to prepare county reports Farms 

 enumerated in the area segments but not iden'ified on the mailing list were used 

 as the basis for estimating the total number and characteristics of all farms in the 

 State not on the mailing list 



For 1974. data were collected only from the mailing list and the State total for a 

 specific Item is equal to the sum of the county reports No data comparable to the 

 1978 area segment sample estimates were included in 1974 State totals. The 

 State totals for 1978 with the area segment sample data— not allocated to 

 counties — excluded, are directly comparable to the 1974 State totals. An evalua- 

 tion of coverage for the 1978 census will be provided in a special coverage report. 



Since the data in this report were collected from a sample of farms, all items 

 are subject to sampling error. The appendix in volume 1 will contain a detailed 

 discussion and measures of sampling error for census data 



The following symbols are used throughout the tables: 

 - Zero (D) Data withheld to avoid disclosing information for individual farms 

 (X) Not applicable. (Z) Less than half of the unit reported (NA) Not available. 



Table 1 Selected Summary Items: 1978 and 1974 



Farms and land in farms: 



Farms number 



Land in farms acres. 



Average size of farm acres. 



Value of land and buildings: ' 



Average per farm dollars 



Average per acre dollars 



Farms by size: 



Less than 10 acres number 



10 to 49 acres number 



50 to 179 acres number 



180 to 499 acres number 



500 to 999 acres number. 



1.000 to 1.999 acres number 



2.000 acres or more number 



Land according to use: 



Total cropland farms 



acres.. 



Harvested cropland farms 



acres.. 



Cropland used only for pasture farms 



acres- 



Other cropland farms 



acres. 



Woodland including woodland pastured farms 



acres.. 



Other pastureland and rangeland farms 



acres . 

 Land in house lots, ponds, roads, wasteland, etc ..farms 



acres 



Irrigated land farms.. 



acres.. 

 See footnotes at end of table. 



1978 CENSUS OF AGRICULTURE— PRELIMINARY REPORT 



MASSACHUSETTS— 5 



