BUREAU OF CROP ESTIMATES. 277 



were issued, 108 letters of authorization were written, 2,433 trans- 

 portation requests were issued, and 1,770 vouchers in settlement of 

 accounts were given administrative examination. The bureau also 

 issued to its volunteer crop reporters 18,000 special forms for record- 

 ing crop data, 14,500 Yearbooks, 42,700 calendars, and 403,000 

 packages of seed. 



Owing to a reassignment of storage space it was necessary to move 

 and rearrange approximately 40 tons of stationery, documents, and 

 equipment. Approximately 1,275,000 schedule inquiries were folded 

 and mailed to the field force during the year, ana the returns were 

 tabulated, computed, and summarized by the Division of Crop 

 Reports. A vast amount of information regarding crop and live- 

 stock production in this and other countries was compiled in the 

 Division of Crop Records for the Yearbook, for other branches of 

 the department, for publication, or for use in answering special 

 inquiries. 



PUBLICATIONS. 



In addition to the material prepared in the bureau for pubhcation 

 in the ''Agricultural Outlook," "The Monthly Crop Report," and the 

 statistical appendix of the Yearbook, manuscript articles were pre- 

 pared for publication, as foUows: 



Department Bulletin No. 74, Inland Boat Service: Freight Rates on Farm Prod- 

 ucts and Time of Transit on Inland Waterways in the United States. 



Department Bulletin No. 177, The Production and Consumption of Dairy Prod- 

 ucts. 



Field Agents Hand Book of Agricultural Statistics. 



Movement from City and Town to Farm; reprint of an article in the Department 

 Yearbook for 1914. 



Revision of Circular No. 17, Government Crop Reports: Their Value, Scope, and 

 Preparation. 



Foreign Trade of the United States in Farm and Forest Products. 



The Agricultiu"al Element of the Population in Various Countries. 



THE MONTHLY CROP REPORT. 



The publication of the Farmers' Bulletin entitled "The Agricultural 

 Outlook" was discontinued with the issue of April, 1915. Beginning 

 with May, 1915, the publication entitled "Monthly Crop Report" 

 was begun as a serial of the Bureau of Crop Estimates. It was also 

 provided that, inasmuch as the Monthly Crop Report will set forth 

 results obtamed in the Bureau of Crop Estimates, the value of which 

 depends largely upon their prompt and timely publication, the trans- 

 mission of the manuscripts through the Division of Publications to 

 the Pubhc Printer will be expedited, and the Chief of the Bureau of 

 Crop Estimates will be held responsible to the Secretary for aU mat- 

 ters contained therein. The Monthly Crop Report is a resumption, 

 in size and nature of material, of the Crop Reporter, which was dis- 

 continued with the issue of June, 1913. The pubhcation of statis- 

 tical matter was resumed, however, on September 11, 1913, in the 

 Agricultural Outlook. In addition to the statistical data the OuUook 

 included a number of chapters or articles dealing with timely matters 

 of production. It was found impossible, however, to pubhsh the 

 Outlook quickly enough to make the crop figures fully serviceable to 

 the pubhc. Moreover, the cost was found to be greater than was 

 expected, comparatively few Members of Congress ordered it for their 



