Let $p(x)=a_0 + a_1 x + \ldots + a_n x^n$ be a polynomial with all roots real and satisfying $x \leq -δ$ for some $0<δ<1$. We show that for any $0 < ε<1$, the value of $p(1)$ is determined within relative error $ε$ by the coefficients $a_k$ with $k \leq {c \over \sqrtδ} \ln {n \over ε\sqrt{ δ}}$ for some absolute constant $c > 0$. Consequently, if $m_k(G)$ is the number of matchings with $k$ edges in a graph $G$, then for any $0 < ε< 1$, the total number $M(G)=m_0(G)+m_1(G) + \ldots $ of matchings is determined within relative error $ε$ by the numbers $m_k(G)$ with $k \leq c \sqrtΔ \ln (v /ε)$, where $Δ$ is the largest degree of a vertex, $v$ is the number of vertices of $G$ and $c >0$ is an absolute constant. We prove a similar result for polynomials with complex roots satisfying $\Re\thinspace z \leq -δ$ and apply it to estimate the number of unbranched subgraphs of $G$.