1954 Farm Census

1954 Farm Census

16th of Series

Now Under Way

America’s more than 5 million farmers are being asked to cooperate with the Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce, in the 1954 Census of Agriculture which is now Under way. This census is the 16th in a series of nationwide farm canvasses since the first farm census in 1840, over 100 years ago.

In most States, copies of the census questionaire are being mailed to farm operators in advance of. the enumeration which began early in October and will continue into December. The starting date for the census, has been set for the close of the normal crop harvesting season in each area. Questioned res to be used in different areas have been designed, to cover the crops commonly produced in these areas, while a number of questions common to all farms will be included in each variation of the questionnaire. In seven Southern States where the sharecropper system is followed, the questionaires will be delivered in person by the enumerators to assure the consolidation of reports for multipleunit farms.

The mail questionaire used in most of the States is accompanied by a letter from Director Robert W. Burgess of the Bureau of the Census. The Census questionaire is designed to collect information about the number and size of farms, tenure, acreage of land in various uses, crops harvested, livestock inventory and production, expenditures for selected items (labor hire, machine hire, feed, fertilizers and lime, gasoline and other petroleum fuels and oil), inventory of selected facilities and equipment (televisions, food freezer, piped running water, tractor, harvesting machines, automobile, truck, etc.) irrigation, conserva-' tion practices, farm value, mortgage debt, and cash rent. Regional variations of the questionaire will be used so that inquiries about crops, for instance, will be limited in each area to the crops common in that area. On an average, each • farmer will be asked about 100 questions, many of which can be answered “yes” or "no.” \