222 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURAL 



STATISTICS. 



The value of correct and reliable statistics of agricultural productions 

 is coming to be understood and acknowledged by the more intelligent of 

 all civilized countries, but Governments are found to be slow in furnish- 

 ing the means and systematic machinery for the early collection and 

 proper distribution of such statistics among the people. 



Knowledge is said to be power, but knowledge is of but little practical 

 value unless generally diffused among those who may be most benefited 

 by its possession. 



These observations are peculiarly and forcibly applicable to our own 

 country, where agriculture is and must always be the chief pursuit of 

 the people and reliable support of the Government, and where every cit- 

 izen is a sovereign and a law maker. Upon our agricultural resources 

 and productions depends our power as a nation, and upon a proj^er 

 knowledge of those resources and productions depends not only the 

 degree of that power, but its advantageous use and application. 



Commerce and manufactures are but the adjuncts of agriculture; the 

 former lives by distributing the productions of agriculture, and the latter 

 by converting those productions into the various forms which render 

 them more useful and convenient to civilized man. Agriculture is the 

 great producer of civilization ; commerce and manufactures are its legiti- 

 mate results and immediate dependents. Hence it is, that agricultural 

 statistics, correctly and timely collected, are so much sought after by care- 

 ful and successful business men, and are of so much value to commerce 

 and manufactures, and to Governments ; while the records of the latter 

 pursuits are principally useful as they indicate indirectly the extent of 

 our agricultural productions. But while the men of commerce, the man- 

 ufacturers, seek for the earliest and most reliable information as to the 

 quantity and kinds of the products of the soil, and use such information 

 to their own great advantage, and while our Government depends upon 

 these statistics as a basis, in a great measure, in estimating its revenue, 

 both internal and external, and as indicating its strength and power and 

 consequent position among other nations of the earth, yet it is an indis- 

 putable and lamentable fact, that the most useful and beneficial applica- 

 tion of these statistics, both to the citizen and the Government, is j^et 



