33 



borders $15 worth of agricultural products and $369 worth of manu- 

 factured goods. Of special significance, however, is the fact that 

 in 1900 for every person over ten years of age engaged in agricultural 

 pursuits in Massachusetts there was an average investment in farm 

 property of over $2,700, while the capital invested in manufacturing 

 represented but slightly more than $1,400 per capita for those engaged 

 in that industry. 



Notwithstanding the value of the census of population for the 

 political purpose of reapportioning representation in the Congress 

 of the United States, and the value of the statistics of manufacturing 

 to the vast interests immediately concerned, the census of agriculture, 

 of all the subjects covered by the census law, is generally regarded 

 as of the greatest importance to the country. 



Population increases naturally at a fairly constant rate, and can 

 always be estimated, for the country as a whole, with a high degree 

 of accuracy. Manufacturing in most of its branches is so highly 

 organized and book records are so generally kept, that it is a com- 

 paratively simple matter to obtain from time to time accurate estimates 

 of the capital invested and the value of the product. Agriculture, 

 on the other hand, is the great unorganized industry with respect to 

 book records of its operations. Upwards of 7,000,000 farmers are 

 conducting farm operations on separate farms at the present time. 

 Their products are marketed at all seasons of the year, under all 

 sorts of local conditions, and at a widely varying range of prices. 

 New lands, new crops, new methods and new processes are constantly 

 modifying conditions in every branch of husbandry, and the net 

 results of farm operations are affected thereby to an unknown extent. 



The United States Department of Agriculture, with its splendid 

 organization, keeps in the closest possible touch with every phase of 

 farm life in all parts of the country. Its trained agents and reporters 

 note everything that affects crops and live-stock conditions, and keep 

 the department fully informed. Yet so vast is the industry and so 

 intangible are many of the elements and conditions affecting the 

 results of farm operations, that the crop and other estimates made 

 by the Department of Agriculture, and which exert such a tre- 

 mendous influence on market conditions, would quickly lose their 

 significance and become practically valueless if they were not regu- 

 larly revised in the light of the actual census returns. 



Hence the importance of the farm census, and of striving for the 

 greatest possible degree of accuracy in the data to be gathered. Aside 

 from the fact that the census of agriculture supplies the data upon 

 which all official estimates of farm products are based for the ensuing 

 ten years, the information obtained is of great value from the educa- 

 tional standpoint. While comparatively few farmers make personal 

 use of the large volumes of farm statistics issued by the Census Bureau, 

 it should be borne in mind that the data thus published provide the 



