4 BULLETIjST 1043, U. S. DEPAETAIEXT OF AGRICULTURE. 



From these illustrations it becomes apparent that the word " loss " 

 in connection with crops may have either of two different meanings. 

 The kind of loss suffered by Z when liis prospective 35-bushel wheat 

 crop was reduced by a hailstorm to a 14-bushel crop, as well as the 

 less spectacular but more severe loss which caused the prospects of X 

 to shrink from 35 to 8 bushels an acre, is perhaps best termed " crop 

 damage " hj way of distinguishing it from the kind of loss suffered 

 by Y, which was not onlj crop damage or a diminution in prospective 

 yield, but a " financial loss " on the season's operations. 



Adhering to this terminology^, it may be said that X and Z -suffered 

 crop damage on their wheat, which, however, was not sufficiently- 

 severe to prevent X from breaking even, or Z from making a profit 

 on the year's operations. Y, on the other hand, suffered crop damage 

 which resulted in a financial loss equal to his entire expenditures in. 

 connection with the crop which failed to yield a harvest. Similarly 

 A, B, and C, in the first illustration, with their harvests of 20 bushels 

 of wheat, 55 bushels of corn, and 350 pounds of cotton, respectively^ 

 suffered crop damage, although each may have been able to show a 

 financial profit instead of a financial loss on his year's operations. 



Even after this attempt at clarification, one of the terms, " crop 

 damage," retains a vagueness which it seems impossible entirely to- 

 remove. The idea of crop damage set forth in the preceding para- 

 graphs may be said to be faulty in that it assumes that the best 

 crop yet harvested was a perfect or no-clamage crop, whereas it may 

 well be questioned if on any farm such a crop has yet been reaped- 

 It must be further conceded that it would be impracticable to arrive;- 

 at any figures representing the crop damage for a larger area or for 

 the country as a whole by using the term as outlined, since it would 

 be impossible to take into consideration the maximum yield on each 

 individual farm. 



In order to obviate these difficulties and to make it possible to work: 

 out approximate figures for the amount of crop damage from various- 

 causes, the United States Department of Agriculture has arbitrarily 

 assumed that a crop exceeding by 10 per cent the normal yield is a 

 perfect or no-damage crop for the territory in question. The normal 

 yield may, in turn, be defined as the yield that the crop reporter 

 has in mind as one which in good years actually occurs over extended 

 areas, and in percentages of which he reports crop prospects as well 

 as crop damages from the different causes. The raising of the 

 normal yield by 10 per cent in order to determine the no-damage yield 

 is an attempt to make suitable allowance for the fact that the yield 

 which the crop reporter, as the result of experience and observation, 

 has in mind as a normal yield for his locality is not strictly a perfect 

 or no-damage yield. The difference between a perfect or no-damage 

 yield and the actual yield is the measure of total crop damage. 



