U.S. Farm Acreage. As the number of farms has decreased in the United States, the average size of the remaining farms has grown larger, as shown in the table below.
Year Average Acreage per Farm
1900..................... 147
1910.................... 139
1920.................... 149
1930.................... 157
1940.................... 174
1950.................... 213
1960.................... 297
1970.................... 374
1980.................... 426
1990.................... 460
1995.................... 438
2000.................... 436
2003.................... 441
2005.................... 445
2009.................... 418

a) Use a graphing calculator to fit quadratic, cubic, and quartic functions to the data. Let x represent the number of years since 1900. Using R2-values, determine which function is the best fit.
b) Using the function found in part (a), estimate the average acreage in 1955, in 1998, and in 2011.