Sugar cane growers are interested in the relationship between the total acres of sugar cane harvested and the total sugar cane production (tons) of those acres. The data listed here are for the 2007 crop from 14 randomly selected sugar cane€“producing counties in Louisiana.

a. These data values have many zeros that will be in the way. Change acres harvested to 100s of acres and production to 1000s of tons of production before continuing.
b. Construct a scatter diagram of acres harvested, x, and tons of production, y.
c. Does the relationship between the variables appear to be linear? Explain.
d. Find the equation for the line of best fit.
e. What is the slope for the line of best fit? What does the slope represent? Explain what it means to the sugar cane grower.

Acres Production Acres Production 2,600 29 900 13,600 9,600 26,400 39,400 30,000 70,000 825,000 470,000 295,000 800,000 1.220,000 910,000 10,100 12,300 25,100 51,000 11,100 26,500 1,700 300,000 375,000 730,000 1,530.000 335,000 770,000 55,000