The first of an eight-volume series, The Literature of the Agricultural Sciences, this book analyzes the trends in the published literature of agricultural economics and rural sociology during the past fifty years. It uses citation analysis and other bibliometric techniques to identify the primary journals, report series, and monographs of current importance to the developed industrial countries as well as those in the Third World.

Agricultural economics paper on the data collecting methodology and research methodology used in conducting a 1970-1972 survey of agricultural management among traditional farmers in Sierra Leone - reviews some alternative methods of farm management and agricultural production economic research, and covers the general principles of field study work in africa, the 'cost route method' of data collecting, etc. Map and references.