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A Note on the Patent Office Crop Estimates, 1841–1848

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Robert E. Gallman
Robert E. Gallman
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina
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Extract

From 1841 throught 1845 and again in 1847 and 1848 ofiicials of the United States patent Office estimated the output of the principal agricultural crops of each state and territory. These estimates have been generally disregarded by economic historians, presumably because their acuracy has been considered questionable. But I have bee unable to find any published, comprehensive evaluation of them. In this note I will briefly examine the methods used to make the crop estimates and apply a few checks againsts the results, with the object of evaluating them, in a preliminary way, as historical data.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 1963 , pp. 185 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1963

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References

1 The estimates are recorded in the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Patents: 1841, 27th Cong., 2nd Sess., Sen. Doc. 169, pp. 7–8; 1842, 27th Cong., 3rd Sess., Sen. Doc. 129, pp. 5–6; 1843, 28th Cong., 1st Sess., H. R. Doc. 177, pp. 12–13; 1844, 28di Cong., 2nd Sess., Sen. Doc. 75, pp. 11–12; 1845, 29th Cong., 1st Sess., Sen. Doc. 307, pp. 90–91; 1847, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., H. R. Doc. 54, pp. 84–85; 1848, 30th Cong., 2nd Sess., H. R. Doc. 59, pp. 92–93. The products estimated were: wheat, barley, oats, rye, buckwheat, Indian corn, potatoes, hay, hemp (1844, 1845, 1847, 1848), flax and hemp (1841–1843), tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar (Louisiana output only, in 1848), wine (1841–1843), silk. The flax and hemp, wine, and silk series are not dealt with here, the first for reasons which will appear, the last two because these products were of very little importance and because the estimates seem clearly deficient. The reports are cited hereafter as “A. R. for 1841,” etc.

2 The text materials of the reports have been used extensively. See, for example, Bidwell, Percy W. and Falconer, John I., History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 1620–1860 (Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1925)Google Scholar. In chapters XXVI through XXXII, crops are dealt with by states for the years 1840–1860. The Patent Office reports are cited repeatedly, but not one crop estimate is used.

3 A. R. for 1847, p. 86.

4 31st Cong., ist Sess., H. R. Doc 20, Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1849, Part II, Agriculture, p. 14. The estimates were begun during Henry L. Ellsworth's term as Commissioner. Ellsworth, an enthusiastic student and (later) practitioner of agriculture, was responsible for the very great attention given agriculture in the Patent Office reports of the 1840's. His successor, Edmund Burke, carried out the estimates for 1847 and 1848. The estimates were dropped during the term of Thomas Ewbank.

5 Compare A. R. for 1841, p. 7, and A. R. for 1843, p. 16, with A. R. for 1847, p. 87, and A. R. for 1848, pp. 102–3. A. R. for 1844 (p. 13) suggests that circulars were used before 1844. A. R. for 1847 (p. 87) says that fifteen hundred circulars were sent out in that year, but does not say how many were returned. (At that time there were about two thousand counties in the United States.) Four hundred were returned in 1849, but we do not know how many were sent out. Furthermore, the circular for 1849 had objects very different from those of earlier years and may have elicited more or fewer responses for this reason. See. A. R. for 1848, p. 339, and A. R. for 1849, pp. 83–86.

6 For example, see A. R. for 1842, p. 7.

7 See A. R. for 1845, P. 93 and footnote 5, above.

8 Secretary of State of Connecticut, Statistics of the Condition and Products of Certain Branches of Industry in Connecticut for the year Ending October 1, 1845 (Hartford: John F. Boswell, 1846)Google Scholar;Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Statistics of the Condition and Products of Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts for the year Ending April 1, 1845 (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1846)Google Scholar; Secretary of State of New York, Census of the State of New York, for 1845 (Albany: Carroll and Cook, 1846)Google Scholar.

9 The prices are the national averages for 1844 used in Gallman, Robert E., “Commodity Output, 1839–1899,” in Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 24, of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1960), pp. 45–52Google Scholar.

10 The Department of Agriculture has published tobacco and rice production series, but the figures for the 1840's are taken from the Patent Office reports. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Statistics, Circulars 33 and 34 (Washington, D. C: Govt. Printing Office, 1912). The Agriculture Department's cleaned rice output figure for 1849 is in error. It was taken from the census and actually refers to rough rice. DeBow, J. D. B., Statistical View of the United States (Washington, D. C.: A. O. P. Nicholson, 1854), p. 170Google Scholar, The cleaned rice equivalent (calculated from the conversion ratio of Circular 34, p. 4) is 132,910,000 pounds.

11 A. R. for 1847, p. 170; A. R. for 1843, pp. 17, 75; A. R. for 1845, p. 273.

12 A. R. for 1843, pp. 75, 98; A. R. for 1844, pp. 107, 134–36; A. R. for 1845, p. 295; A. R. for 1847, p. 181.

13 But some state census data were made available in the middle of the decade, as noted above, and may have been used to correct Patent Office estimates.

14 The prices are from Gallman, pp. 45–52.

15 The movement of the hemp curve is sharp, but no sharper than the movement between 1844 and 1845. The hemp estimates, however, are somewhat different from the others. Hemp and flax census returns for 1839 were combined. The data are unusable, since tons (hemp) and pounds (flax) were added together. Consequently, the Patent Office hemp series was not based on the 1839 returns.

16 Thorp, Willard Long, Business Annals (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1926), pp. 124, 125Google Scholar.

17 DeBow, p. 170.

18 Page 376.

19 A. R. for 1849, pp. 88, 98, 102, 106, no, 114. But see, also, the discussion of the state series, above.

20 Page 305.

21 See DeBow's Review, Vol. 10, p. 201.

22 See Figure 1. The appraisals are taken from Thorp, pp. 123–25.