DIVISION OF STATISTICS. 21)7 



work of the Department to Hawaii, Porto Rico, and, as far as practi- 

 cable, the Philippine Islands. Not only, as it seems to me, have the 

 people of these islands a right to share in whatever benefits accrue to 

 the agricultui-al interests of the United States proper from the statis- 

 tical work of this Department, but it should be remembered that unless 

 the recent agricultural census in Hawaii and Porto Rico, with its 

 farm-to-farm visitation, be made the foundation of whatever statistical 

 work this Department may undertake in those islands, such work can 

 not be begun under anything like the favorable conditions that now 

 present themselves until the census shall once more furnish a definite 

 and authoritative statistical starting point. I estimate the expense of 

 extending the statistical work of the Department to the islands in 

 question at a sum not exceeding $8,000 per annum. 



THE STATISTICAL LIBRARY. 



The accessions to the statistical library numbered during the year 

 about 1,000 volumes, increasing the total contents of the liljrary to 

 about 15,000 books and i>amphlets. While, as stated in the Statisti- 

 cian's report for the year ended June 30, 1899, this library is an integral 

 part of the general Library of the Department, segregated merely for 

 the convenience of this Division, it has been built up largely through 

 the efforts of successive Statisticians, and its magnitude is now such 

 that a special effort should be made to make it absolutely complete as 

 regards the agricultural statistics of the world. The assignment to 

 this purpose of the sum of $1,000 would render this great desideratum 

 practically attainable. 



THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT COTTON EXHIBIT AT THE PARIS 



EXPOSITION OF 1900. 



The United States Government cotton exhibit at the Paris Exposi- 

 tion, the preparation of which was assigned to the Statistician, received 

 the highest award bestowed upon any exhibit or class of exhibits, 

 namely, the grand prize. While the award has no pecuniary value, 

 it is esj)ecially gratifying to the Statistician, if only as a recognition 

 by the exposition authorities of the success which attended the effoi'ts 

 of the Department's statistical correspondents, who were the principal 

 contributors, to make an exhibit that should not only be worthy of 

 the United States as the greatest cotton-producing country in the 

 world, but at the same time illustrative of all the particular varieties 

 that are ijeculiar to the different sections of the cotton belt. Every 

 portion of the cotton region was represented, even to that remote 

 southwestern corner of Utah, bordering upon Arizona and Nevada, 

 where cotton has for so many years past been raised by irrigation for 

 the consumption of a local factory. 



AGR 1900 20 



o 



