Chapter A, Problem 27E

Number of Farms The accompanying table gives the number of farms in the United States for the years 1990 through 2010. (U.S. Department of Agriculture, www.usda.gov).

Table for Exercise 27

Year	Farms (in thousands)
1990	2146
1995	2196
2000	2172
2005	2101
2010	2064

a.Find the equations that express the number of farms as a function of the year by using linear regression and quadratic regression. Let x = 0 correspond to 1990.

b.Predict the number of farms in the United States in 2015 using linear regression and quadratic regression.

Solve each problem.