February, ’18] 
FOOD PRODUCTION DISCUSSION 
111 
tionnaire was also sent them regarding the injurious insects most likely 
to be in sight. 
Just before wheat harvest I got a sufficient working staff to make a 
state survey. With very limited funds, I had judged it to be unwise 
to dissipate them in aimless wandering about the state to see what 
might be loose, and, therefore, timed the work to give greatest help to 
the crop of greatest importance during these war-times, viz., wheat. 
I believed the acreage could be increased if I could give the growers 
definite information that they were not seriously menaced by Hessian 
fly or other wheat insects and could safely do their seeding nearly at 
their own convenience. I, therefore, started four surveyors at four 
points on the southern border of the state and instructed them to pro¬ 
ceed northward along four parallel lines, devoting approximately one 
day to each county. In laying out the routes, I paid some regard to 
the easiest lines of travel but aimed to make the stopping point in each 
county at a county seat, which was headquarters for a county agricul¬ 
tural agent or a county food commissioner. Then I wrote a letter to 
each of these county officials informing him of the purpose of the sur¬ 
vey and requesting that he give such assistance as possible to the sur¬ 
veyors by way of transportation, information as to the location of the 
wheat districts, etc. I informed each that a day or two before my 
surveyor was due to arrive he would make his approach known by a 
long distance phone call or a night telegraph letter, and if said county 
officer could not be in his office the day of the surveyor’s visit much 
assistance could be given by leaving a memorandum of the best route 
with the office clerk or that it might be possible to have arranged in 
advance a trip with some retired farmer willing and glad to loan the 
use of an automobile and acquainted with the wheat growers of the 
county. So far as I recall, every county agent visited personally re¬ 
sponded to my request and gave most effective help to all the surveyors. 
One line of survey was made exclusively by automobile and this was 
undoubtedly the cheapest and most satisfactory means of transporta¬ 
tion. 
Each surveyor carried with him blank reports or questionnaires, one 
of which was filled out for each county and mailed to me or brought in 
by the surveyor. A hundred or more straws would be examined in 
each wheat field visited for Hessian fly and jointworm and the average 
of the day’s examinations, supplemented by a general estimate, was 
taken as the average infestation of the county. Similar examinations 
were made for wheat midge and inquiries were made at every point for 
unusual entomological conditions. I gave a write-up of the survey 
in our September Monthly Bulletin which reaches about 50,000 Ohio 
farmers, published a rather full report of it in the Ohio Farmer, and by 
