The agricultural output of England and Wales 1925

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1757028552

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-135495

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: The agricultural output of England and Wales 1925

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: XV, 152 Seiten; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter I. Introduction

Collection:: Economics Books

that the first method would give the best results, but this is not necessarily the case. Growers do not always weigh or measure their crops, and in any case do not usually do so till they come to be sold. Thus a farmer may keep wheat in the rick and not sell off the whole of his crop for a year or sometimes longer, some crops, such as barley, oats, roots or hay may be consumed on the farm, and so far as this is the case many farmers keep no accurate records of quantities. In short, though farmers may make some estimates for their own information, either of their total yield or of the part they expect to sell, it is not possible to rely upon them in general for exact or complete information. If every producer were willing and able to supply a fair estimate of the output of his crops, the average result would, no doubt, be more accurate than the estimates of a limited number of expert estimators. The difficulty of obtaining a statement from the producer has, however, made it necessary in practice to adopt the method of estimating as a means of obtaining annual informa- tion as to the production of crops. In England and Wales the Ministry has the assistance of some 320 Crop Reporters, for the most part land agents, valuers, and others with considerable local experience, who estimate the yield per acre of the principal crops, parish by parish. Each parish estimate is multiplied by the acreage of the crop in the parish as returned by occupiers on the Agricultural Schedule and in this way the total production in the parish and hence in the country is obtained. As there are roughly 13,000 parishes, the final estimate of production is the result of practically the same number of separate estimates based on local knowledge and weighted in proportion to the acreage. These final estimates are made after the crop is harvested, when actual results are known in many cases. The Crop Reporter does not, of course, rely merely on his own observation in making these parish estimates, but supple- ments this by local enquiry from growers, and in the case of corn, from threshing machine proprietors. It is, however, the duty of the Crop Reporter to determine on the basis of the information thus obtained what can fairly be regarded as the average of the parish. It will be seen that, given reasonable skill on the part of the Reporters, the system should result in a high degree of statistical accuracy, and as regards the crops which are estimated annually this method has been adopted for the census of 1925. The annual estimates made in this way cover wheat, barley, oats, mixed corn, beans, peas, roots, potatoes, hay, sugar beet and hops. There remain, however, many important items, such as milk and dairy produce, meat, wool, poultry and eggs, fruit and vegetables, which present much greater difficulty. To supply these missing data is the main object of the Agricultural Census, and the method adopted so far as practicable has been to obtain from producers returns of output. The system varies with different products, but it has not been found possible in any case to obtain such complete information from producers

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