Abstract
THE need for adequate statistics relating to our agricultural resources and requirements must have become obvious to all during the last few years, for the urgency of war problems has served to direct attention to the inadequacy of peace-time data and also to the methods of rapidly filling the deficiencies. Complete and reliable censuses are often impracticable and always make great demands on both time and skilled labour. Where the need is more for a quick and reasonably accurate estimate of crop acreage, yield, or whatever it may be, sample surveys will generally offer a better method of obtaining the data. These set out to arrive at an estimate of the whole from the collection of a limited sample of representative parts. The dangers of such an approach are as clear as the advantages, and only by conducting the sample surveys along sound statistical lines can biased or distorted estimates be avoided and a measure of the reliability of the estimate be secured.
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Agricultural Sample Surveys. Nature 155, 183 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155183a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155183a0