Agricultural statistics of the State of Colorado, 1922

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Agricultural

Statistics

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State

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Colorado

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STATE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION

GOV. WILLJAM E. SWEET, PRESIDENT ALLISON STOCKER, DENVER

L. WIRT MARKHAM, LAMAR ARTHUR H. STERLING

EDWARD D. FOSTER, COMMISSIONER OF IMMIGRATION

HOWARD D. SULLIVAN, DEPUTY A N D

DENVER, C O L O R A D O E A M E S BROTHERS, PRINTERS

Colorado Agricultural Statistics

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1922

Th~ agricultural statistics contained in this pamphlet are for the most part collected by the a&.,;cssors of the several counties in the state for the State Board of Immigration and compiled under the direction of the statistician of the board, in some cases in co-operation with the Colorado agricultural statistician of the Division of Crop and Livestock Estimates of the United States Bureau of Agricultural Economics. This co-operation was confined to the estiruates of average yields of the various crops and the cal-culation of total p·roduction for the state and the several counti€S. Practically all the material herein contained hasbe~nprepared for use in the Colorado Year Book for 1923 and is p,ublished in this form to meet the h-eavy demand for ~oTIculturalstatistics for the state and the several counties coming from people in other states who contemplate acquiring or renting land in Colorado- The Year Book is not available for free distribution to such persons _¥1d,;.

moreover it contains considerable material in which they'aii')iiot interested. This pamp,hlet is intended to take the place amo'ng this -class of inquirers of the D~ecember Crop Report, issued by this department in co-operation with the United Stat-es Bureau of Agri-cultural Economics, fori'which much of the information herein con-tained is not available.

The maps and charts herewith published llave also been pre-pared. under the direction of the statistician, of the Board of Immi-'gration, chiefly from data collected by county' assessors, though in some cases data compiled by the federal census bureau has been used.

The year 1922 was gen-erally unfavorable to the agricultural industry in Colorado. Pricesof 'most farm products, including live-stock, .showed some improvement over thoselof 19'2.1, with fruits and potatoes as notable exceptions. The season was abnormally

dry in mostsections of the state ·and in some districts th~ drought was so severe as to caUBe serious damage to crops. . The average precipitation for the state, based upon rep<>rtg from nearly 100 stations, was 15.60 inches for the year, or 1.75 inches below normal. There was a deficiency i~ many of ,the principal agricultural dis-tricts during June, July, August, Septemb:er and October.. A wide strip of territory just east of the mountains and as

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f~\ 3 STATE OF COLORADO 3

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I ,,/,... Castle Rock and Limon and a large part of the southeast corner of

the state su1Iered severely from drought, while counties in the extreme eastern part of the state and north of the Arkansas divide suffered less severely. As farming without irrigation is carried on here more extensiv-ely than in any other part of Colorado the result was a marked reduction in ~yieldof such crops as wheat, corn and sorghums, which are grown extensively in tlus district. There was also a shortage of wa.ter for irrigation in some districts, which reduced yields of such crops as potatoes, sugar beets, alfalfa, etc., to below normal.

Despite these various adverse conditions:t it ,viII be noted from an examination of the tab,le on page 4 tllat the farm value of all crops grown in the state in 1922 was great-er than for the preceding yea}". This increase ,vas due to advances in prices rather than to increased production, for the total farm output for1922 was slightly below that for the p-reeeding year, though t11e acrea-ge under culti-vation was somewhat more.

It will also he noted that the total aCTeage and prodllctioII of most crops as given in the general table on page 4 is different from the total acreage and prodllction given in the several county tables. This is due to the fact that the exact acrea.ge reported by the sev-eral county assessors is given in the various county tables, and where p,roduction is calculated in these county tables the average yields for eaC}l county, as deterlllined by the agricultllral statisti-cian of the United States Bureall of Agricultl1ral Economics, are used in calculating county production. In the general tahle th·e acreage is corrected b~y adding ahol1t 4 per cent to the reports of county assessors on account of incompleteness and in tIle ease of many crops, notably, vvheat,eOI'll,oats, rye, barley a.nd beans,

deduc-tions from this acreage are made because of the aereage not ha.r-vested on account of crop failure. As the 1922 season was unfa-vorable for small grajns and carll in nlost sections of the state the acreage of such crops not harvested vvas illllCh above normal. In the cases of oat",'3, barley and rye, considera.ble acreages are harvested for hay or pastured in th.e field. Only tIle estimatet1. acreages har-vested for grain are used in calc.ulating the grain production in the general table on page 4, while the entire aereage is treated as harvested for grain hI the eoul1ty tables.

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