DIVISION OF STATISTICS. , 295 



fully justified their iippointnient. Tlie3' have kept the office in close 

 touch with the Department's State statistical agents and other princi- 

 pal correspondents, have secured a greater degree of uniformitj^ in 

 the methods of crop-reporting, and, I)}' their own individual investi- 

 gations, have largely contributed to that greater accuracy of the 

 Statistician's reports which has been so generally acknowledged bj" 

 the commercial press. By no means the least valuable feature of 

 their emi^loyment consists in their availability for such investiga- 

 tions as those relating to the ravages of the Hessian fly and the effects 

 upon agriculture of the West India hurricane (chiefly associated in 

 the i^ublic mind with the destruction of the city of Galveston), on 

 September 8, 1900. When the news of the latter disaster reached 

 Washington Mr. Holmes was at Topeka, Kans., and Mr. White at 

 New Orleans, La., and within a few hours both of them were on their 

 way, under telegraphic instructions, to Houston, Tex., from which 

 city every important point in the entire region devastated was visited 

 and the extent of the loss sustained b}' the farmers and planters Avas 

 ascertained. 



The Statistician's facilities for making an accurate forecast of the 

 cotton ci'op have also been largely increased by the compilation of a 

 list of cotton ginners, more than 50,000 m number, and by the success 

 that has attended his efforts to induce these most favorably situated 

 persons to report to him from time to time during the ginning season. 



But, notwithstanding these important additions to the cro^j-report- 

 ing service, the Department was never under greater obligations to 

 its regular county and township correspondents, its county assistants 

 and State agents' aids than it is at the present time. Their reports 

 still constitute the basis of the Statistician's work, and it is exceed- 

 ingly gratifying to be able to announce that they are more numerous, 

 more complete, more regular, and more prompt than at any past 

 period in the history of the Department. 



REGULAR PUBLICATIONS. 



In the report of the Statistician for the year ended June 30, 1899, 

 reference was made to a monthly publication, called "The Crop 

 Reporter," designed for the exclusive use of the Department's crop 

 correspondents. Partly on account of the difficulty of thus restricting 

 the circulation of a publication of general interest, for which thou- 

 sands of applications were received from the general public, but still 

 more largel,y in recognition of its possible usefulness as a medium for 

 the publication of information relative to the work of the Department 

 that would scarcely be of sufficient importance to be made the subject 

 of a bulletin, the monthly statistical Crop Circular was, on May 1, 

 1.900, consolidated with it, and the restriction of its distribution to cor- 

 respondents was removed. While continuing to fulfill its original pur- 

 pose of interesting correspondents in their work, anticipating their 

 requirements, and making intelligible to them the relation they bear 

 to one of the most important branches of the entire work of the 

 Department, the ijublication has proved acceptable in the much wider 

 field in which it now circulates, and that without trespassing upon the 

 province of either the commercial or the agricultural journals. In 

 addition to a considerable amount of matter relative to the methods 

 of work in the Division of Statistics and statistical reports of various 

 countries, it has contained articles on "The agricultural work of the 

 Census," "Agriculture in India," "Government crop reports and spec- 



