M. K. Bennett

On Measurement of Relative National Standards of Living

Some Aspects of the General Problem, 318. — Selection of Indicators, 320. — The Problem of Averaging, 327. — Conclusions, 333.

Climate and Agriculture in California

riety of their state. The average citizen knows that from the highest point of land in the United States, Mt. Whitney, it is possible to look down into the lowest, Death Valley; that one can spend his winter week-end either skiing in the Sierras or golfing near the coast; that on a midsummer day one can drive within two or three hours from dry scorching heat in the interior valley to a seashore definitely cool and probably foggy, or can wait for night to fall and bring with it comfortable temperatures. These contrasts find professional expression in the fact that Russell (R. J. Russell: Climates of California, University of California Publications in Geography, Vol. 2, 1926, pp. 73-84) and Thornthwaite (C. W. Thornthwaite: The Climates of North America, Geographical Review, Vol. 21, 1931, pp. 633655; The Climates of the Earth, ibid., Vol. 23, 1933, pp. 433-440) each distinguish eleven types of climate within the boundaries of the state. On Thorn-

Some Problems Raised by the Official Estimates of American Per Capita Food Consumption

W7 HOEVER looks into a publication of the United States Department of Agriculture entitled Food Consumption in the United States, 1909-52 will find in it almost inconceivably detailed statistical information pertaining to national use of food, annually from 1909 to 1952; and from supplementary documents, one can have data for later years too. These give a basis for attempting first to describe and second to explain changing patterns of national food use over as long a time as I could manage. The descriptive statistical work has probably proceeded nearly as far as is necessary. On some matters of interpretation, and particularly the buttressing of hypotheses with statistical evidence, I am still groping. Six summary tables of the basic descriptive statistics have been distributed. I shall focus here upon some but not all of the problems both of measurement and of interpretation of long-term trends. First I shall mention problems of definition and coverage; second, problems concerning relative levels and trends of ingestion and noningestion; third, problems of backward projection; fourth, problems of the causation of changing proportions; and fifth, problems of forward projection.

A Method of Measuring Managerial Ability in Farming

Investigators in farm management and farm organization, particularly those engaged in the analysis of complete farm cost records gathered by the route method, have always encountered difficulty in determining which of the farms of the group under investigation were most successfully managed. No simple or generally satisfactory method of answering the question has as yet been devised. Yet, if it be (as is commonly acknowledged) the chief function of farm management investigators to give advice on efficiency in farm operations and as to choice and proportions of crops and livestock enterprises, it becomes necessary to isolate and measure the managerial function of the farmer as distinct from his landowning, laboring, and financing functions. Such measures of the farmers ability as have customarily been employed are open to serious objection on the ground that the measures used have applied not to ability to manage a farm but to the prosperity of the farmer or his family. The two things are obviously not the same. Any farmer may be a good manager of labor, of implements, and of land, and yet be driven from his farm because of unwise outside investment, foolish expenditure of money for personal pleasure, excessive indebtedness, or too small or too large acreage; or he may prosper, though he is a poor manager, by inheritance, successful outside investment, increases in land value, or other causes. It has admittedly been impossible to measure farm prosperity; yet it has been the practice of farm management investigators to attempt in fact to do so, even while ostensibly seeking rather for a measure of managerial ability. Labor income and percentage of return on investment have

Population, Food, and Economic Progress.

A Thousand Years of World Population Growth-- Food and Famine Since the Middle Ages-- Current Problems of Expansion-- Citations-- Appendix

The Development and Purposes of Farm-Cost Investigation in the United States

I. Four methods of collecting cost data: route method, survey method, questionnaire, farmers record, 274. — History of the movement, 275. — II. Influences promoting the movement, 277. — Efficiency, country life, tariff inquiries, cost in relation to price, 278. — III. Price-fixing as an object, 283. — Farm efficiency, 284. — IV. Difficulties in the way of accuracy, 286. — How deal with managerial ability, rent and land value, joint costs, 287. — Cost records of doubtful value; problems of averaging, 287. — Not easy to advise farmers what to produce, 291. — Conclusion, 293.