The probate filing for the estate of my grandfather, Daniel Ulvog, provides a lot of information about the farm. Let’s look at indicators of the price of farm animals. The filling provides a number of data points.

Here is the listed information sorted by animal with a mean (weighted average), mode (price with largest number of animals), and my point estimate of the price of different animals.

 

Cows:

Sales:

• $132.07 – 19 head

Purchases:

• $50.00 – “1 cow”; oddly low price suggests this was not a mature cow
• $43.74 – “one cow”; again, this does not appear to be mature cow

Appraised value:

• $30.00 – 25 calves,

A calf is under 1 year of age. A yearling is between 1 and 2 years old. (The distinction is something this city boy had to look up.)

The $30 price is mentioned as calves. The $50.00 and $43.74 proceed appear to be yearlings. This leaves $132.07 as the sole indicator of mature cow prices, which is a good indicator since there were 19 head sold at the time.

Estimate of prices

So, I will use these prices:

• $132 – cow
• $47 – yearling (average of two data points)
• $30 – calf

Mixture of ages:

Purchase:

• $167.50 – one cow and one calf

This price now makes sense and supports the above prices. One cow at $132 plus a calf at $30 would be $162, which is close to the purchase price of $167.50.

 

Hogs:

Sales:

• $35.31 – 3 hogs
• $57.78 – 11 hogs
• $50.00 – sale of hogs without indication of number sold – assumed to be 2 based on prices

Inventory:

• $45.50 – 13 hogs at appraised value

Estimates of prices

Calculated prices:

• $49.41 – mean (weighted average)
• $45.50 – mode (data point with largest number of animals)
• $51.12 – mean of two largest data points

The $35.31 price seems to be an outlier, possibly because those 3 animals were smaller or younger. Thus I will use mean of two larger items, which is:

• $51 – hog

 

Recap

I will use these prices for animals:

• $132 – cow
• $47 – yearling
• $30 – calf
• $51 – hog