Appendix A. 
Statistical Methodology 
THE CENSUS POPULATION 
The 2014 Census of Horticultural Specialties (CHS) 
was designed to cover all operations from which 
$10,000 or more of horticultural products were 
produced and sold, or normally would have been 
sold, during 2014. Horticultural products include 
bedding plants, potted flowering plants, cut flowers, 
cut cultivated florist greens, trees, shrubs, ground 
covers, vines, fruit and nut trees, sod, dry bulbs, 
greenhouse produced vegetables, commercial 
vegetable transplants, vegetable and flower seeds, 
Christmas trees, short term woody crops, aquatic 
plants, unfinished or prefinished plants, propagation 
materials, and other nursery or greenhouse plants. 
Data collection for the 2015 Commercial 
Floriculture Survey was conducted in conjunction 
with the 2014 Census of Horticultural Specialties. 
Supplemental questions, not summarized in the 2014 
Census of Horticultural Specialties, were included in 
the data collection to meet the requirements needed 
for the 2014 Floriculture Crops Summary report. 
The 2014 CHS mail list was built from NASS’ s list 
frame. All records on the frame with $10,000 or 
more in horticultural sales were included on the mail 
list. A sample was selected for other horticultural 
operations on the frame that had less than $10,000 in 
horticultural sales or had unknown sales values. The 
final mail list included 40,319 operations. The 
response rate is an indicator of quality of data 
collection. The response rate for the 2014 CHS was 
60 percent and is calculated by the ratio of 
completed records with $10,000 or more of 
horticultural sales divided by the sample excluding 
records with less than $10,000 in horticultural sales. 
DATA COLLECTION 
Method of Enumeration 
The 2014 CHS was accomplished primarily by 
mailout/mailback, but supplemented with Electronic 
Data Reporting (EDR) on the Internet, telephone 
enumeration, and personal enumeration for special 
classes of records. Personal enumeration 
(interviewing) involved the use of both Computer- 
Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) and 
Computer- Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI). 
Office enumerators at the NASS National Operations 
Division (NOD) in St. Louis, Missouri, with 
assistance from NASS staff in Montana and 
Arkansas, conducted CATI data collection. In 
addition field enumerators conducted phone and 
personal interviews with respondents. For the 2014 
CHS, NASS implemented a pre-notification strategy 
in an effort to increase awareness, improve overall 
responses, and encourage respondents to report early 
to avoid continued correspondence. All records in 
the initial mailout received either a postcard or pre- 
recorded voice message announcing the census mail 
packets were coming. 
Report Form 
Three 28 -page report forms were used to capture the 
number of horticultural products produced and sold 
and the value of sales for both retail and wholesale 
sales. The various types of plants sold were grouped 
by sections in the report forms. 
The three report forms used for the 2014 CHS 
included a U.S. (excluding Hawaii) horticulture 
report form (14-A0624), a U.S. (excluding Hawaii) 
floriculture report form (14-A0625), and a Hawaii 
horticulture report form (14-A0627). The U.S. 
2012 Census of Agriculture Appendix A A - 1 
USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service 
