Department of Agricultural Economics Research Project Records, 1911-1963

Richard J. McConnen served as the principal investigator for this study. This series consists of memoranda, notes, tables of figures, handwritten description of the study, survey forms, and statistical figures. The Economic Survey consists of a series of mimeographed tables with figures. No written summary of this study is present.

Pius Weisberger served as the principal investigator for this study. This contains no final report. Included are a research project statement, meeting memo, proposal on a regional project, a talk by Ira M. Stevens, and a paper on the marketing of lambs.

This series provides the name of no principal investigator nor does it contain a summary or final report. It includes handwritten notes, Federal Register reprints, a graph, barley shipments via rail for Montana, other railroad freight for 1960-61, a barley production/animal unit chart, and a price per bushel/bushels per animal chart.

Clive Harston of Montana State College's Department of Agricultural Economics served as the principal investigator. Series 4 concerns loss of weight in livestock during shipment and its effects on market price received by western stock raisers. It contains pamphlets on the general topic of shrinkage, lambs, announcements, requests for copies and draft reviews, draft of circular, handwritten notes, other related papers and clippings, and field notes of interviews. The first and second of the planned series of three circulars (#s 220-222), "Cattle Shrinkage Depends on How You Market," "Cattle Shrinkage: Depends on Where, When and What You Market," are present in mimeographed form.

Clive R. Harston of Montana State College's Department of Agricultural Economics served as the principal investigator for this study. This series includes letters of suggestion that a study be done, letters pleading lack of funding for such a project, booklets/pamphlets on cooperative grain marketing and elevators, a final report form, an annual progress report form, and a research project statement. There is no final, full report in this series.

The principal investigator was Clive R. Harston of Montana State College's Department of Agricultural Economics. Items include a research project statement, notes, correspondence, and a study contract draft. There is no final report in this series.

The name of a Dr. Baker appears on one of the items. This may be Laurence O. Baker who was an assistant professor of Agronomy at this time. This series includes work tables, notes, charts, and survey forms. There is no final report in this series.

This series consists of questionnaires, theses, and a final report, which appears as Montana Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 586. Principal investigators included Robert L. Sargent, graduate research assistant at MSC, Jack R. Davidson, Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Montana Agricultural Experiment Station, Bozeman, and Lawrence A. Jones, agricultural economist, Economic Research, U.S.D.A. The purpose of this study was "to determine whether or not credit is as readily available for home building, remodeling or purchasing in rural areas as in the urban areas of Montana." Bulletin 586 is in Box 3, Folder 4. A mimeo of Robert L. Sargent's thesis, "Availability of Rural Housing Credit in Montana," has been removed from this collection since the thesis is available in MSU library. The series also includes a mimeo of "Availability of Rural Housing Credit in Montana," with some variation from the bulletin, in Box 3, Folders 5-8.

Principal investigators are not listed. This series includes survey forms presented to commercial bank real estate brokers, attorneys, and similar individuals, mortgage companies, agents, savings and loan associations in Montana, correspondence, and questionnaires.

This series consists of survey forms labeled as "personal interview." Montana areas surveyed included, Butte, Billings, Dillon, Glendive, Great Falls, Havre, Kalispell, Shelby, and Sidney. Information on these forms includes the sex of the interviewee, meats purchased, shopping frequency, influences and habits, meat consumption during week, occupation, age, education, home when growing up, years in Montana, and income.

This series includes surveys of Phillips, Prairie, and Yellowstone Counties. It comprises information on poor farms, delinquent children, housing, mortgages, grazing capacity, families on relief survey forms, aid applications, maps, county agent annual reports, occupations, survey report forms, and ownership. A survey report for Phillips County is in Folders 40-44 and consists of charts, graphs, and tables. The Report on Survey of Prairie County is in Folders 61-66. A survey report for Yellowstone County is in Folders 74-75 with some tables missing.

This includes schedules for "Farm Organization and Production Requirements in Selected Irrigated Areas," and is dated October 1948. Roy E. Huffman and D.C. Myrick served as principal investigators. Schedules include information on the area of owned and rented cropland, grazing, livestock, crop types, irrigation, crop rotation, fertilizer and manuring, farm labor, inter-farm cooperation, mechanical and other innovations, machinery and equipment, and farm expenses and receipts.

Includes family schedules providing names of owners, farm location, numbers in family and household, nationality, beet acreage, division of earning, and notations. Solo Worker Schedules include owner or tenant name, numbers of workers, wage agreement, resident and migrant workers with nationalities, contracted acres, and notations.

Farm and ranch schedules include name, address, ages farm experience, supply center location and distance from farm, type of farming, how started in farming, land used in crop production, real estate indebtedness, production credit, machinery and improvement financing, attitudes, farm supply expenditures, family living expense, major farm improvements, livestock enterprises, and machinery and equipment.

Merchant and Dealer Schedules provide information on location, type of merchandise, sales to farmers, farmer credit sales, interest charges and terms of repayment, credit extended on open account, basis for credit arrangements, credit terms on open account purchases, loss on open account credit, opinions on credit use, prefer cash or credit terms, sales vs. credit, and presence of credit department.

This study includes a handwritten "Report on Economic Study of the Shonkin Extension of the Sun River Electric Coop" by L. Thompson (pages missing); various tables constructed from collected data; Summary Sheet—Farm Records which cover crop and land use, feed use, land, building, livestock, equipment, and credits and debts inventories, electric equipment, miscellaneous factors, and notes.

These schedules include data about land location, name and address of owner, erosion, strip cropping, crop residues, use of permanent vegetative cover, renovating land in permanent cover, water facilities, diversion ditches for flood irrigation, windbreaks, contour furrows on pasture land, and effect on farm organization and management.

Includes information on numbers and acreages of wheat farms, combination farms, and stock ranches, seeded wheat acres, wheat yields, feed crops, animal units, and area summaries; progress in studies; agricultural policy material concerning requisitions, emergency war agencies, responsibilities of agencies, Northern Plains Regional Study, Northwest Regional Council, new research projects, Chronology of American Agriculture (1790-1940), and commodity reports; old frequencies; worksheets; resource productivity data; computation sheets; miscellaneous; dairy sales; crop types in counties; industrial incomes; income material; labor earnings; livestock industry; livestock income shares; experiment station financial report; livestock contributions; agricultural production; Canadian agriculture; wheat, hay, sugar beets, flax, potatoes, rye, barley, oats, corn horses, mules, and cattle data; Northern Plains tenure; Montana plains type of farming; flax and tariff; range and livestock; ranch management and organization, farm records and accounts; forms for feeding records, farm business records, farm tractor records, farm inventory.

Glenn H. Craig was the principal investigator for this study which covers areas in Canada and Montana. Numbers in parentheses represent the schedule numbers assigned to the original folders in this study. Data includes name and location of the elevator, corporate and cooperative features, management, membership, credit analysis, side lines and services, general information, assets, liabilities, grain, surplus analysis, shipping record, selected statistics, balance sheets, operating statements, comparative statistics, income, and sales. Box 10, Folder 18 contains "Preliminary Analysis of Farmer's [sic] Elevator Operations, 1937-1938."

Includes original manuscript for "Collective Tenure in Montana" by Glenn H. Craig and Charles W. Loomer, the principal investigators for this study.

Partial records summary provides some data for 1940 farm size, expenses, income, and resources.

Forms for Flathead County dairy farms including farmers' names, dairy sales distribution, and seasonal variation

Provides information on operator names, investment costs, irrigation development and drainage costs, pasture development, reservoirs, dugouts, springs, wells, irrigation history, cattle, sheep, other livestock and products, machinery, labor, taxes, grazing, crop production and use.

Includes data concerning crops, pasture, non-farm income, loans, grazing practices, calf crop, cattle, sheep, swine, land valuation, ownership and land use, irrigated range and farmland, land tenure and production, rangeland cut for hay and value, family organization and farm-livestock practices, expenses, and livestock tabulation.

Provides information related to Glen Craig's ranch study in the form of letters, budgets, manuscript drafts, and notes. No final manuscript is present.

Contains notes, and questions and statements on health, nutrition, medical care, size of unit, tenure, labor and migration, credit and taxation, and the conservation and use of forest resources, related to maximizing contributions to the war effort (WWII), special topics, and correspondence.

Proffers manuscript, "Dairy Production Alternatives in Western Montana," cost reducing, coding, articles, annual reports, progress reports, news clippings, "It's Your Business! Dairy Production Alternatives for Western Montana," data forms, notes, publications, analyses, dairy farm locations, land size and tenure, dairy size and type, labor, crop system, livestock system, other income, power, machines, equipment, farm expenses, husbandry, pasture management, breeding practices and cow replacement, dairy expenses, milk handling, dairy marketing, district maps, irrigation.

Study conducted by the Montana State College Agricultural Economics Department and the U.S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Gives operator names and locations of property, irrigation districts in Bitterroot Valley, buildings, machinery and equipment, livestock, tillage practices, map of farm with fields and crops, crops grown, irrigation, fertilization practices, labor, farm cost data, and farm income.

This series provides data from a survey of communities in Beaverhead County in 1919, including a summary sheet, community name, community dimensions, topography, post office names, number of rural routes and starting points, natural resources, chief income sources, irrigation, dry farming, tenants, owners, other industries and persons employed, relationship between businessmen and farmers, population in villages and open country, means of communication, community leadership, important institutions and organizations, newspapers, public libraries, social classes, community activities, social organizations and social life, church surveys with location, denominations, ministers, equipment, church floor plans, finance, membership numbers and occupations, meetings, parish, names of other white and negro churches, foreign population, Sunday school, other church organizations, special work, Jackson community photograph, and a two-page handwritten commentary on the survey.

Includes county summary, county name, population, other races and nationalities.

According to the inventory listing for this accession, this series may be part of Wilson's Triangle Study. Includes "Farm Survey Record" forms from the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station Department of Farm Management which provide information on the county, operator of farm, addresses, acres owned and rented, acres in various uses, crop records, livestock records and products, other income sources, feed and seed inventories, current expenses, machinery and equipment, real estate, farm finance, unpaid labor, and notes. Counties include Ravalli, Flathead, Yellowstone, Hill, Pondera, Liberty, Toole, Chouteau, Teton, Cascade, and Glacier. Forms for the cost of milk production provide data on grain fed and raised during the year, grain purchased during the year, pasture, buildings, insurance, veterinary, forage raised and fed during the year, forage purchased during the year, labor on cows, and products from cows. Counties represented include Ravalli, Yellowstone, and Flathead.

Provides information on state lands. Materials are arranged by county. Offers data concerning location, acres granted, patent, lands sold, easements and rights of way, and acreage retained by state. No report for this study is present.

This study appears to have been conducted at the behest of the Federal Government, and covers the period between 1911 and 1938. According to a cover letter in one of the files, the compiler was H.V. Brown. The data for this study appears to have been gathered in 16 Montana counties, which were then used to present a state average. There is no final report with this series, although the USDA Farm Mortgage Recordings report for Montana is included.

This series consists of research materials used by M.E. Quenemoen for his thesis, "Economic aspects of water spreader developments on southeastern Montana ranches," done in 1952 on the subject of waterspreaders. Original research questionnaires, project notes, and other items are contained here. There is no final copy of the thesis but it is available in the Special Collections stacks.

Apparently compiled during the 1930s, these reports cover all people moving into the county since 1930. Information regarding all newcomers' occupations, health, place of origin, marital status, and so on is provided. Tables are extant for the period from May to August, 1939, although the entire 1930s period is covered in terms of arrival dates.

Apparently compiled in the 1930s, this series contains tax delinquency information for properties in both Ravalli and Missoula Counties. It includes lot location maps, lists of operators (farmers?) in Ravalli County, and information regarding both the amount of tax owed and how long the owner has been delinquent. Most are handwritten, and many contain penciled notes. There is no final report with this series, or any real indication of this data's purpose or final use.

This project is dated 1929 in the original inventory, but correspondence extant in the files runs from 1928 through 1935. The basic thrust of this project, which seems to have been coordinated or overseen by Harriet Cushman, was to establish standards and certification for Montana poultry flocks in line with those used by the American Poultry Association. There is much information about certification standards, including some used in Washington State, but no final report.

This project appears to have been geared toward gathering information about farm management and operations. Saunderson and Gilman are listed as the main authorities for the project, which was conducted in 1929. There is earlier information present, including crop records for 1925 and 1926. Records vary from farm summaries (containing expenses and profits) to complete records that include farm labor sheets and inventories. In the latter cases, cards are also present containing information about the farmer, his family, and any laborers present on the property. There is no final report with this series, or any indication as to the nature of the project itself. The mixed correspondence files seem to deal mostly with letters to county extension officers and are filed by the addressee's last name.

This series contains much information from a number of M.H. Saunderson's projects in the late 1930s. Prominent among them are a 1937-1938 range sheep study, a cooperative grazing document, soil conservation reports, drafts of two undated papers ("Some Questions of Policy in the Use and Management of Public Lands in the Eleven Western States" and "Agricultural Conservation Program from the Viewpoint of the Northwest Livestock Producer"), and a Farm Account Book from Alfred Anderson covering the period from 1923-1930. There is no indication of the purpose of the Anderson book, and no final reports are present for the range sheep study or the cooperative grazing and soil conservation projects. The agricultural conservation materials seem to be mostly from the USDA. Conservation program information tailored for Pondera County is featured, along with some information for Yellowstone County. There is also a Work Progress Authority memo and a copy of a Montana soil conservation law (HB 298) from 1937. The range survey data seems to come from 1937, and includes some cooperative grazing agreements and information.

No final report for this study is contained in these records. The study seems to have been based on land sales conducted during June of 1957, although there are some earlier samples included in the voided surveys files. The study consisted of four types of interviews (Bidder, Buyer, Dealer, and Seller) conducted for land sales. The interview sheets are color-coded and further identified by county and a numeric code for each parcel of land sold. Most of the interviews were conducted by Paul Pilati, W. Rehberg, H. Walton, or Laurence (no initial was given for Laurence, which may be a first or last name). This series is organized by interview type, followed by county and then sale number. Not all the interviews are present in these records, as there are gaps between many of the numbers. A final file contains a copy of the "instructions for enumerators," a blank survey form, and notes covering three counties (Custer, Roosevelt, and Cascade) not included in the interviews. There is also an owners' survey for Golden Valley. Interview series marked with an asterisk are incomplete. The purpose of this study seems to have been to collect data regarding the price of land, reasons for buying and selling, and some occupational information about those involved.

No final report or contextual documentation is included with this series. It consists of a number of questionnaires developed to record farm information (including labor, crops and livestock raised, hiring plans and preferences, information about the farm families, and so on) from 1941 and into 1942. The interviews were conducted during the summer of 1942 on around 300 Montana farms in a number of counties. The forms are numbered (except those marked for discard), but there appears to be no method for the numbering process. Questions on the forms include number of laborers, hiring preferences of the farmer (based on gender, town/vs farm origin, age, and racial groupings), available housing, use of employment service, labor statistics for workers and family members, crops/livestock raised during the study's period, location of the farm and its acreage, and so on. Labor figures and "Crop War Units" and "LWU's" are totaled on the accepted forms in colored pencil, but the series gives no indication as to the meaning of these markings. A set of interviewer instructions, a blank and completed example form, and a number of rejected forms are also included. Forms are rejected based on either the farmer's not farming in 1941 or incomplete entries (most often in the labor sections). The numeric system of the accepted forms has been preserved in this series.

There is no final report or authority with this data, which seems to have been gathered during the 1920s and up to about 1933. R.R. Renne was involved in at least some aspects of the data gathering, as his name appears on scattered correspondence in some of the files. Records include: Information on mill levies and taxes paid on selected property in the counties studied; correspondence relating to tax information from those counties; tabulated data regarding railroad tax monies and how they were used in selected counties. The data was originally packaged in folders divided into regions, and this separation has been roughly preserved. The original designations were Central District (there appear to have been two - one containing Fergus, Lewis & Clark, Cascade, and Petroleum counties and another containing Golden Valley and Musselshell counties), South East District (Custer and Rosebud counties), North West District (Missoula and Flathead counties), South West District (Madison, Gallatin, and Beaverhead counties), North East District (Dawson, McCone, Sheridan, and Valley counties), South Central District (Carbon, Big Horn, Sweet Grass and Yellowstone counties), and North Central District (Hill, Teton, Chouteau, and, Blaine counties). The railroad tax information is limited to 1933 and focuses mainly on its use for education.

This series consists of cards recording farm foreclosure information for a number of Montana counties from about 1900 through 1936. The period covered seems to depend on the county being surveyed. Most of the cards contain notes, and some even show that they have been researched a second and third time. However, there is no indication in this series as to what this data was used for. It is possibly the original source data for the reports contained in Series 32, although the periods being studied do not match and there is no correspondence or other information to back up this assumption. There is also a discrepancy between the counties used in the Series 32 study and the counties with completed cards in this Series. In all, fourteen counties were studied, with a number of reclassifications being done. The final folders contain tabulated data on all bankruptcies and foreclosures of Montana farms between 1898 and 1937.