Here's the answer to those critics of such data gathering and presentations.  Its based on the idea that the earlier data tends to be lower since the earliest years had fewer agencies and news gathering sources. In comparison, our modern times have much greater proliferation of official agencies and news sources.  A similar phenomenon occurs for recording forest fires, land based tornadoes, pandemics and other charting efforts. There's some distortion within the earliest data, with gaps of coverage. 

Yet acreage burned data is aimed at major, news-worthy fires, and avoids concerns about omitting the small insignificant fire events within the earliest historic periods.  Avoids the mismatch of current data being inconsistent because of greater reporting awareness in current times. 

In the charting of land based tornados, the charting reflects just strong tornadoes F3+.  This approach avoids the potential mismatch, with current enhanced capability to spot small tornadoes, much better than compared to earlier times.