Provision for the 1940 Agriculture Census was made in the Act providing for the Fifteenth Decennial Census which was approved on June 18, 1929. Data in Volume I, comprising the first and second series Census of Agriculture reports, were first published in two separate bulletins for each of the forty-eight States and the District of Columbia. The reports are the results obtained from a tabulation of the information given by farm operators to census enumerators in a personal canvass in connection with the Sixteenth Decennial Census.

Volume I consists of six parts, presenting detailed statistics, respectively, for (1) New England, Middle Atlantic, and East North Central states; (2) West North Central States; (3) South Atlantic States; (4) East South Central States; (5) West South Central States; and (6) Mountain and Pacific States.

This volume incorporates the first and second series State bulletins for agriculture. In the first series the data relate, in the main, to the number, acreage, and value of farms; the value of buildings and of implements and machinery on farms; farm land according to its utilization; some of the foregoing items classified by the color of the farm operator, some by the tenure of the farm operator, and some by the size of the farm; farms reporting, and number of specified classes of livestock and poultry with some of their products; and farms reporting with the acreage and production of specified crops harvested.

In the second series, the statistics are presented for the following items: Mortgage debt for farms of operating owners (both full owners and part owners); taxes on farm property; work off their farms by farm operators for pay or income; age of operators; year of occupancy; residence of farm operators on their farms; farm labor employed at specified times; expenditures for selected items; inventories of automobiles, motor trucks and tractors, with the year of latest model lor each general class; availability, use, and source of electric current; whether farm has telephone; kind of road adjoining farm; inventory of goats; mohair production; goats milked; farm slaughter, purchases, and sales of various classes of livestock; the individual annual legumes; clover and grass seeds; miscellaneous field crops; farm gardens; vegetables harvested for sale; horticultural specialties; small fruits; and tree fruits, nuts, and grapes.

These documents only contain the specific state tables. The introductory material is included in the parts above.