PROFITS THAT FARMERS RECEIVE 637 



survey could be obtained. It has been the experience of those who 

 had occasion to take a number of farm records that the farmer 

 is able to give, and does give, a remarkably correct statement in 

 regard to his financial business. As a rule a few important items 

 constitute a large part of the farm receipts or expenses, and these 

 items, when not well remembered, can often be checked up by 

 the creamery or dealers' accounts. Where certain farmers will 

 overestimate, others will underestimate, and the results averaged 

 from 100 farms, or over, are approximately correct. An excellent 

 illustration of the accuracy of results obtained in these surveys is 

 given by Professor W. J. Spillman in Bureau of Plant Industry 

 Bulletin 259 of the United States Department of Agriculture. 

 He states as follows : 



Among the several hundred farms included in the survey were 135 that 

 sold milk to creameries. Each of these farmers was asked to give as accurate 

 an estimate as possible of the amount of money he had received for this milk. 

 After the survey was partially finished it occurred to the investigator that it 

 would be possible to secure a check on the accuracy of these estimates by ob- 

 taining the actual figures from the creameries themselves. It was decided also 

 to test in a similar manner the farmers' estimates of the quantity of milk each 

 had sold to the creamery. The estimates as to quantity of milk sold were then 

 obtained from the 79 farms visited after the decision had been reached to 

 make this test. These farmers did not as a rule weigh their own milk and 

 were not accustomed to dealing with weights as they were with sums of 

 money : it was to be expected, therefore, that the estimates of quantity of 

 milk sold would be less accurate than those of money received, and this 

 was the case, as will be shown below. After obtaining the estimates from 

 the farmers, the actual figures, both for weights of milk sold and for money 

 received, were secured from the creameries that had purchased the milk. 



Estimated pounds of milk sold (79 farms) .... 3,518,816 



Actual pounds of milk sold (79 farms) 3,487,320 



Difference 3^496 



Estimated value of milk sold (135 farms) .... $106,163.00 



Actual value of milk sold (135 farms) 106,155.50 



Difference S7.50 



It is seen that the error in the quantity of milk sold is a little less than 1 

 per cent of the whole. At the same time the individual estimates of pounds of 

 milk sold were in error by amounts ranging from 40 per cent above to 36 per 

 cent below the correct figures. In the total these errors tended to counter- 

 balance each other, so that the sum of the estimates was quite accurate. In 



