Excerpt from Suggestions Concerning Checking and Tabulating Farm Management Survey Data, 1917

A survey record generally consists of estimates made by the farmer as to the details of his business for the past year. Most farmers have the details of their business sufficiently in mind to give a satisfactory record, but in some cases it requires great skill on the part of the field man in reducing his questions to the terms in which the farmer thinks in order to get trustworthy information.

If a record is grossly inaccurate this fact is easily detected by the system of checking outlined below. Even if it is only slightly inaccurate this fact will usually show because of the numerous checks in the records themselves. The following is an outline of the work to be done in checking a record:

1. Compare the office sheet with the field blanks to see if all the transfers have been correctly made.

2. See if the total acres of crops, pastures, woodland, etc., equals the total farm area.

3. Examine the yields of the crops per acre to see if they are reasonable when compared with the normal for the year and locality. (See next paragraph.)

4. Examine the sales to see if prices and amounts sold are reasonable. If the price is unusual, there should be an explanation on the field sheet. In general, any unusual item on a field blank should be accompanied by a note of explanation, to show it is not merely an error.

5. Balancing the live stock. Certain inconsistencies in the livestock record may be detected as follows:

Cows. - If the number of cows on hand at the first inventory be added to the purchases and the sum be subtracted from the sum of the second inventory plus sales, plus number died, the difference will show the number of heifers added to the herd during the year. Suppose this difference is six and that in the first inventory only four heifers were shown and that one heifer was purchased. This shows a mistake of at least one either in the number of cows or in the number of heifers. The number of heifers that became cows during the year might be zero in such a case, no matter how many heifers were on hand the first of the year.

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