2 BULLETIN 1322, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF INQUIRY 
fn the material supplied by the owners of farms included in this — 
study ? comparable figures are found that cover over four decades in — 
the case of land valuations and, in the case of other items, periods © 
ranging from four years to nearly three decades. } 
Company records included 68 farms, one of which is missing in the © 
transcription made by department workers. In the case of two of © 
these farms there were short gaps in records otherwise consistent. — 
The records for 49 farms run to 1919, and for the 16 farms that are 
the special subject of this study, to 1920. The average number of — 
years covered in the records of the 49 farms is 15, all but 12 of the © 
records extending from 15 to 18 years. The average number of 
years covered in the records of the 16 farms is 27, and though there ~ 
was some shortage in the number of these farms during the first six 
years, there was no shortage in the area included in them. Of the 
1,162 years of farm record, nearly 64 per cent is included in the 
records for the 49 farms. The records for the 16 farms include 417 
farm years, of which 398 are used in this study. The almost perfect 
consistency of the records for the 16 farms, the greater length of time — 
covered by them, and the fact that they show no significant differ- — 
ences justifying further comparisons with the records of the other — 
farms account for the basing of this study entirely on the 16 farms: — 
From the standpoint of variability in the rents per acre from year — 
to year it would be desirable to limit the number of farms to a smaller — 
number than 16. The massing of even so few farms as 16 tends to — 
make the variability seem less than that which would have been ex- 
perienced by a person owning fewer farms. It was considered that 
the statistical advantages and disadvantages resulting from either a 
large or a small number of cases, where annual variations in averages 
per acre are involved, were near their minimum when the study was 
based on the 16 farms covered for the longest period. Moreover, one 
of the important objectives of the study is to analyze the relationship 
between various economic factors and the valuation of the farms, 
and a study of this kind is no less feasible when made for a compara- 
tively small number of farms. 
The accuracy of these records can not be questioned, and “error 
of observation ” can be regarded as at a minimum. 
The basic figures applicable to these 16 farms, supported as they 
are by data from a half hundred other farms in the same locality, 
are not necessarily representative of the entire Lake Agassiz basin 
or of any other considerable area of the spring-wheat belt. Never- 
theless the trends in these figures and the indicated variations are 
probably similar to those which have been experienced in connection 
with large numbers of farms in that general area. The types of 
relationship among the trends and variations, as shown here, are — 
probably not peculiar to the farms belonging to a single corporate — 
landlord, but may be considered to indicate fairly the major shifts — 
in the economic position of many wheat growers in the Northwest. 
ee Se 
a —— ee Oe 
2The cooperation of Walter R. Reed, for many years president of the Amenia-Sharon | 
Land Co., and an official of allied corporations, made the present study possible by 
much personal and Official assistance. 
