VALIDITY OF THE SURVEY METHOD OF RESEARCH. 5 



amount of man and horse labor required by an acre of cotton and an 

 acre of corn, in both cases up to the time the cultivation of the crop 

 is finished. The questions) asked the farmer related not to the total 

 amount of this labor but to the various operations usually performed 

 and rate of work per day for each operation. That is, the questions 

 were asked, in the terms in which the farmer thinks. Later these 

 same farmers were induced to keep accurate records of all the labor 

 on their farms for a year. Table IV shows the results in com- 

 parison. Because of the variation from year to year of the actual 

 amount of work done per acre on a given crop even on the same farm 

 it is impossible to tell whether the actual work done during the 

 season for which records were made on these farms is more accurate 

 than the farmers' estimates. In any case the differences are seen to 

 be relatively small when compared, for instance, with the differences 

 in yield on duplicate plots in field experiments on the yield of crops. 



Table IV. — Comparison of 29 farmers' estimates with actual records for a 

 single season of labor on cotton and corn to " laying by." 



Crop. 



Man-days per 

 acre. 



Horse-days per 

 acre. 



Esti- 

 mates. 



Records. 



Esti- 

 mates. 



Records. 



Cotton , 



10.14 

 4.44 



9.80 



4.78 



5.76 

 5.22 



6.05 





6.39 







INVESTIGATIONS BY J/l. B. OATES. 



Investigations of a similar nature were conducted in northwestern 

 Louisiana. The results are given in Table V. The figures given 

 are averages of 10 records and 11 estimates on cotton, 13 records 

 and 13 estimates on corn, and 11 records and 10 estimates on peanuts. 

 Ordinarily these numbers are too small to give reliable averages, yet 

 the agreement between estimates and records is fairly satisfactory. 



Table V. — Comparison of records and estimates of man and horse labor on 

 cotton, corn, and peanuts in Louisiana. 





Crop. 



Man hours per acre. 



Horse hours per acre. 





Estimates. 



Records. 



Estimates. 



Records. 



Cotton 



47.0 

 32.3 

 23.1 



47.7 

 27.2 

 29.4 



34.9 

 38.1 

 30.2 



34.4 





33.1 





30.0 







Estimates were also secured from 10 farmers of the number of 

 days available for field work during the year. This number naturally 

 varies with the character of the weather from year to year. Later 



