. VALIDITY OF THE SURVEY METHOD OF RESEARCH. 3 



dertaken. These were of necessity limited to data which were either 

 already available in reliable records or of which such records could 

 be secured by instituting a system of cost accounting. The results of 

 these investigations are given below. 



INVESTIGATIONS BY F. E. ROBERTSON. 



Where a community of farmers sell all their milk to local cream- 

 eries it is possible to get an accurate record from the creameries of 

 the amount of milk sold by each patron and the receipts for the same. 

 In a dairy community in southern New Hampshire 135 farmers were 

 found who sold all their milk to local creameries. These farmers 

 were asked to give an estimate of the amount received for milk dur- 

 ing the preceding year. Many of them at first professed to be un- 

 able to do this, but a little questioning as to the number of cows kept, 

 the amount of the monthly milk check, etc., finally elicited an esti- 

 mate from each of them. Later the precise amounts were copied from 

 the books at the creameries. The results are shown in Table II. The 

 error in these estimates, taking all farms together, was $346, or 

 slightly less than one-third of 1 per cent of the total. 



Table II. — Comparison of fanners' estimates and creamery records of annual 

 receipts for milk on 135 New Hampshire dairy farms. 



Estimated value of milk sold, all farms $106, 183 



Actual value of milk sold, all farms 105, 837 



Error in estimates 346 



Before this investigation was finished it occurred to the investi- 

 gator to include also the amount of milk sold. Accordingly, the 

 remaining farmers, 79 in number, were asked to estimate this item. 

 These farmers were in the habit of thinking in terms of dollars and 

 cents but not in terms of pounds or gallons of milk. They found it 

 more difficult to estimate quantity than value of milk sold. The 

 results are given in Table III. In this case the error in the total 

 for all the farms was nine-tenths of 1 per cent. 



Table III. — Comparison of farmers' estimates and creamery records of pounds 

 of milk sold annually on 79 New Hampshire farms. 



Estimated pounds of milk sold, all farms 3, 518, 816 



Actual pounds of milk sold, all farms ■ 3, 487, 320 



Error in estimates (pounds) 31,496 



INVESTIGATIONS BY A. D. McNAIR. 



An investigation was made at Belton, S. C, of the pounds of seed 

 cotton per bale from estimates of seven farmers and from gin records 

 of 400 bales. The average for the 400 bales, according to the gin 

 records, was 1,362 pounds of seed cotton per bale. The average of 



