466 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGPJCULTURE. 



FARM BOOKKEEPING AND COST ACCOUNTING. 



Cooperative investigations in cost accounting on individual farms 

 and studies of systems of bookkeeping and cost accounting in use by 

 farmers and agricultural interests in general have been continued. 



Work done in the field has consisted of visits to cooperating farm- 

 ers for the purpose of making inventories, measuring crop areas, 

 and securing other data necessary for the completion of records, and 

 conferences with county agents and farmers seeking advice and 

 assistance in farm accounting work. Current office work has in- 

 cluded the posting, tabulating, and summarizing of cooperators' rec- 

 ords, and the handling of a considerable mass of correspondence and 

 personal inquiry from individuals interested in farm accounts or 

 cost accounting. 



In addition to routine work, a special study has been made in con- 

 nection with the farm labor problem created by the war. In this 

 connection, labor requirement data, by months, for each crop or other 

 farm enterprise and for the farm as a whole, were tabulated for 

 C>9 farm years, covering representative farms in four agricultural 

 regions. 



AGRICULTURAL HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY. 



Work on the Atlas of American Agriculture, which was somewhat 

 delayed by the w^ar, has made considerable progress during recent 

 months. Four sections are now awaiting publication, and work is in 

 progress on eight more. The sections entitled. " Frost and the Grow- 

 ing Season " and " Cotton " were issued during the year. 



In addition to routine work on the Atlas, much time has been 

 devoted to studying the agriculture of certain foreign countries 

 involved in the war, for the purpose of supplying information to 

 thfe American representatives at the Peace Conference. Tlie follow- 

 ing maps were prepared : 



Austria-Hungary: Forests; crops and classes of live stock. 



The Balkan countries : Crops and classes of live stock. 



Turkey : Forests ; crops and classes of live stock ; precipitation. 



Africa : Commercial crops and live stock of the former German Colonies. 

 Also, in cooperation with the Weather Bureau, precipitation charts of the 

 continent. 



Some progress has been made in a similar study of the agriculture 

 of South America. Data have been compiled on Argentina, Chile, 

 Uruguay, and Brazil. 



Although these maps and accompanying reports have been pre- 

 pared primarily with the object of affording information to the 

 Commission to Negotiate Peace, the data and copies of the maps 

 which have been retained will be of great value in preparing the 

 various sections of the Atlas. 



Attention has also been given to problems of reconstruction, par- 

 ticularly to studies of the location, extent, and character of poten- 

 tial h^ arable land in the United States. 



TENANCY AND FARM-LABOR PROBLEMS. 



On account of the urgent demand for practical work on the sub- 

 ject of farm labor, a part or all of the time of the men engaged on 

 tenancy projects of the office was withdrawn from that subject and 



