BUREAU OF CROP ESTIMATES. 329 



departments of agriculture of Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, North 

 Carolina, AVest Virginia, Illinois, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Idaho. 

 These agreements provided for pooling the crop reporting resources 

 of the two organizations and the issuance of a single cooperative 

 monthly State crop report in order to avoid unnecessary duplication 

 of work and expense and to improve the service. This plan of 

 combining the force and funds of the bureau with "those of State 

 departments of agriculture has proved highly satisfactory in all 

 States in which it has been tried. The shaded portions of figure 1 

 ishow the States with which the bureau is now cooperating. 



Fig. 2. The shaded portion Indicates States requiring assessors to gather agricultural 

 statistics from farmers annually, including generally acreages planted to specific 

 crops, numbers of bearing fruit trees, numbers of live stock, and other statistical 

 information relating to agriculture. This information has no bearing on taxes, but is 

 of the utmost value to the State and Federal agricultural authorities, not only as a 

 basis for accurate monthly crop estimates for the information of producers and busi- 

 ness men, but in agricultural and marketing plans of which such information must 

 necessarily form the base. In addition to the States shaded, which have laws for the 

 collection of statistics by assessors, North Carolina assessors are proceeding to gather 

 the information in advance of the enactment of such a law. Florida has legislation 

 providing for biennial censuses. In practically all States the tax assessors make an 

 annual census of live stock. 



STATE ASSESSORS* RETURNS. 



In a number of States the efficiency and value of assessors in col- 

 lecting agricultural data of fundamental importance in crop and 

 live-stock estimating, such as acreages planted to different crops and 

 the number of live stock of different classes on all farms within the 

 State, has been fully demonstrated, notably in Wisconsin, Ohio, Ne- 

 ])raska, low^a, Kansas, and Missouri. The bureau is, therefore, sys- 

 tematically encouraging the use of assessors' returns as a basis of 

 estimating and is cooperating with State officials to see that proper 

 steps are taken to insure that the returns shall be complete and that 

 they shall be properly edited and tabulated so that dependable 

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