Agricultural Statistics is published each year to meet the diverse need for a reliable reference book on agricultural production, supplies, consumption, facilities, costs, and returns. Its tables of annual data cover a wide variety of facts in forms suited to most common use.

Statistics presented in many of the tables represent actual counts of the items covered. Most of the statistics relating to foreign trade and to Government programs, such as numbers and amounts of loans made to farmers, and amounts of loans made by the Commodity Credit Corporation, etc., are data of this type. A large number of other tables, however, contain data that are estimates made by the Department of Agriculture.

The estimates for crops, livestock, and poultry made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture are prepared mainly to give timely current State and national totals and averages. They are based on data obtained by sample surveys of farmers and of people who do business with farmers. The survey data are supplemented by information from the Censuses of Agriculture taken every five years and check data from various sources. Being estimates, they are subject to revision as more data become available from commercial or Government sources. Unless otherwise indicated, the totals for the United States shown in the various tables on area, production, numbers, price, value, supplies, and disposition are based on official Department estimates. They exclude States for which no official estimates are compiled.

Extensive table data include statistics of the following: *Statistics of Grain and Feed *Cotton, Tobacco, Sugar Crops, and Honey *Oilseeds, Fats, and Oils *Vegetables and Melons *Hay, Seeds, and Minor Field Crops *Cattle, Hogs, and Sheep *Dairy and Poultry *Insurance, Credit & Cooperatives *Agricultural Conservation & Forestry *Consumption & Family Living *Fertilizers & Pesticides

Miscellaneous Agricultural Statistics such as Foreign Agricultural Trade Statistics including exports, fisheries and more.

Professionals in the following fields to include farmers, ranchers, soil conservationists, surveyors, agricultural economist consultants, livestock manufacturers, livestock feedlot operators, food distributors, animal scientists, food chemists, food brokers, farm and land appraisers (and more) may have the greatest interest in this volume.