WEATHER BUREAU. 57 



the Central Office in Washington. It has 180 fully equipped 

 meteorological stations quite equidistantly scattered over the 

 United States and its dependencies, each manned by one to ten 

 trained officials, which stations are not only weather observa- 

 tories, but are centers for the gathering of statistical and climatic 

 and crop reports. It has a central observatory in each state and 

 territory to which all subordinate offices in the state report, and 

 to which all voluntary weather and crop observers report. These 

 central observatories are equipped with printers, printing plants, 

 trained meteorologists and crop writers, clerks and messengers. 

 During the past fifteen years the work of the substations and 

 voluntary crop and weather observers has been so systematized 

 under the state central offices that these centers constitute the 

 most efficient means for the accurate and rapid gathering, colla- 

 tion, and dissemination of statistical and climate and crop 

 information. The state central offices are under the systematic 

 direction of the central office in Washington. The central office 

 at Washington is equipped with force and appliances for the 

 printing and mailing of large quantities of national weekly, quar- 

 terly, or annual reports and bulletins. The telegraph circuits of 

 the Weather Bureau are ingeniously devised for the rapid col- 

 lection, twice daily, of meteorological reports ; they are also used 

 to collect the weekly national crop bulletin. The Weather 

 Bureau has over 300 paid temperature and rainfall reporters 

 who daily telegraph their data from the growing fields to certain 

 cotton, corn, and wheat centers. The Bureau has 250 storm- 

 warning displaymen distributed among the Atlantic, Gulf, and 

 Pacific coasts and the Lake region. The Bureau has an observer 

 serving each morning on the floor of each important board of 

 trade, commercial association, or cotton or maritime exchange 

 in the country, who displays weather and crop information and 

 each day charts the weather reports on a large map. The 

 Weather Bureau has 3,000 voluntary observers — nearly one for 

 each county in the United States — equipped with standard ther- 

 mometers, instrument shelters, and rain gauges, who have for 

 years intelligently served the government by taking daily weather 

 observations and rendering weekly crop reports to state central 

 offices. There are 14,000 persons reporting weekly to the climate 

 and crop centers on the effect of weather upon the crops in their 

 respective localities. These voluntary crop correspondents could 



