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 supp