The Farm-Housing Survey

1939-01-01/1939-02-01

National Agricultural Library

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Miscellaneous Publication Number 323

The tables on farm housing presented herewith are based on selected data from the farm-housing survey, a house-to-house canvass of farm homes in selected rural counties carried on in January and February of 1934 under the direction of the Bureau of Home Economics. 1 The survey was designed to measure the potential demand for improved home facilities on farms. Tables 2 to 7 include data on 595,855 occupied farmhouses in 308 counties of 46 States, or 8.6 percent of the occupied farmhouses reported for the surveyed States in the Census of Agriculture for 1935.

Detailed information concerning the house, its equipment and needs for improvement, was entered on a schedule, 2 by women field workers under the supervision of the various State extension services. Tabulations were made in county offices and edited in the State offices, and again in Washington. Field tabulations from which data were used for the final tables were found to be accurate within 3 percent of the total number of entries when tested by means of sample tabulations made from the original schedules. The items from the schedule that are included in the tables were selected after careful editing of the field data and with the advice of the United States Central Statistical Board.

Sampling was on the basis of a 10-percent representation of the farm dwellings in each State. Table 1, comparing the number of houses surveyed in the various geographical divisions with the number of occupied dwellings reported by the 1935 Census of Agriculture for these divisions, shows that the sample obtained in all divisions, except the Middle Atlantic, is between 7 and 1 1 percent of the occupied farmhouses, and that slightly more than a 10-percent sample was obtained in the South Atlantic and Mountain divisions.

The counties or areas studied were selected by State committees appointed by the State directors of extension. Some of the factors entering into the selection of the areas to be studied were types of farming, physiographic features, average value of farm and farm dwelling, nationality of farm population, comparative numbers of owner and tenant operators, and the length of settlement.