608 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ment defilerp, wlio. he said, were generally well posted, and finally with a livery team 

 and driver to fjo tliroiigii the country and make a personal examination of the wheat 

 yields. He had leaiiied tiiat the Secretary was preparinsf a wheat estimate, and was 

 quite anxious to secure our fi*?in'os. but as tlie estimate was not ready to give to the 

 ])ul)lic, he eould not, of course, he accommodated. However, as he had traveled 

 through the southwestern counties where the wheat crop was seriously injured, we 

 consented to compare his estimates for these counties with oiu* own, and was sur- 

 prised to find how closel)' tiie two estimates agreed. For St. Joseph count}', where 

 in 18S1 the crop was almost a total failure, his estimate dilfered from ours only about 

 one per cent. Tiie reports made by him and by other agents sent out from tlie same 

 source and for tlie same purpose, were intended to form the basis, for the crop of 

 18S1, of the Ciiiongo wheat dealers. His leports, as lie himself told me, were never 

 made public. They were for the sole use and benefit of the Chicago grain dealers, 

 whose property they were. They had been obtained at great expanse, by interested 

 parties, for personal ends. The general public had no right to them, and there was 

 no way for it to obtain them if it iiad. If the general public wanted such informa- 

 tion, it must adopt methods to secure it at its own expense. 



The pablic at length came to understand tlie situation, and to realize that if, in its 

 dealings with professional grain dealers, it would be their equal and not at their 

 mercy, it must secure for itseif crop information as authentic as that secured by the 

 dealers. 



It was to secure this information that our State system of crop reporting wa& 

 established. 



If it be asked why the States undertake this work, the reply is, first, that except 

 the grain dealers, the States alone are in position to secure the information promptly 

 and accurately. 



The grain producers have, in the aggregate, the same money interest in each crop 

 as the grain dealers, but in all other respects the condition of the two classes is 

 widely different. The dealers are all located at a few business centers, while the 

 producers are scattered from one end of the country to tlie other; the dealers are 

 numbered by hundreds, and producers by millions; each dealer may have thousands 

 or even hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake in each crop, while each producer 

 can at the most have but a few hundreds. In Michigan the great wheat crop of 1880 

 averaged only about 255 bushels to each farm, and the poor crop of 1S81 averaged 

 less than 1(^5 bushels to each farm. As the limited number, concentration at business 

 centers, and large money interests of each, make it comparatively easy for the deal- 

 ers to organize and act together, so the reverse of these conditions make it impos- 

 sible for the producers to organize and act at all. But were it possible for the 

 producers to secure crop estimates, they would be accepted by all other classes only 

 as an ofiset to tlie estimates furnished by the dealers, — the estimates of one inter- 

 ested party as against those of the part}' of opposite interests. 



The National system of crop reports is correct in principal, and, in the absence of 

 anything better, and when under the direction of competent statisticians, has been of 

 great use to the country in approximating the crop products, but attempting as it 

 does to estimate for the entire country, it cannot, at critical seasons, receive detailed 

 reports from the more distant points with that promptness that is absolutely neces- 

 sary to a successful system of crop reporting. In illustration, the Michigan Crop 

 Report for August was issued on the 11th of that month, and contained statements 

 from correspondents in various parts of the State, from which we were able to 

 estimate with substantial accuracy. I think that more than 11,000.000 bushels of our 

 magnificent wheat crop was exposed to, and greatly damaged, much of it being made 

 worthless except for feed, by the rain beginning on the 31.st of July, and continuing 

 to the 8th or 10th of August. 



The National report for August makes no mention of damage to Michigan wheat 

 by the unprecedented rain, but the October report contains a paragraph from the 

 Michigan Statistical Agent, in substance very like our own report ot a month earlier 

 date. 



The great breadth of the territory for which the estimates of the National reports 

 are made, requires such a large number of correspondents, and consequently such a 

 large number of reports, as to render it impossible that individual reports should be 

 properly scrutinized. As might be expected, errors that would be amusing, were it 

 not that they are serious, find place in the department reports. 



Secretary Chamberlain, of Ohio, calls attention to a report of spring wheat in 

 Ohio, where no spring wheat is raised any more than cotton and oranges are. 



A late report shows that in Crawford county, Michigan, corn is a "good deal 

 soft from wet." When we remember that Crawford county in ISSl raised about 

 200 acres ot corn, which yielded about 3,500 bushels, a yield that could not have been 



