BUREAU OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS. 187 



During the apple-marketing season the prices of American apples 

 in the most important British markets were cabled weekly. Ma- 

 terial bearing on all phases of market conditions, production, and 

 demand has been collected in London and forwarded to Washington 

 at the rate of two large pouches per week throughout the year. 



The representative stationed at Berlin has made a special inves- 

 tigation of conditions affecting the market for meat and animal 

 products in middle Europe, in addition to keeping the department 

 in touch with current agricultural and market conditions. 



It was possible to maintain the representative in South America 

 for only a part of the year, but if funds permit, a representative will 

 be returned to Beunos Aires during the coming year. 



CLOSER RELATIONS TO INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE AT ROME. 



A representative spent some time devising ways and means for 

 increasing the value of the work of the institute to the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. He made a study of the crop-reporting 

 methods of all the governments adherent to the International Insti- 

 tute of Agriculture, giving particular attention to the crops covered 

 in their reports, the method by which the data are collected and 

 estimates compiled, the system of reporting crop conditions, and 

 the flates upon which area and production estimates and condition 

 reports are made public. He visited the statistical departments of 

 Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Denmark, and England, where he 

 made personal contacts with those in charge of the offices which com- 

 pile the crop statistics of those countries and report them to the Inter- 

 national Institute of Agriculture. This paves the way for improving 

 statistical methods in order to make international crop statistics more 

 uniform, timely, and comparable. 



BEGIN WORLD SURVEY OF AGRICULTURE. 



A survey of the agriculture of those regions of the world that 

 compete with our agricultural products in the foreign field and of 

 those markets that look to the United States as a source of their 

 supplies of foodstuffs and raw materials was begun during the 

 latter part of the fiscal year 1922. 



Completion of the investigation in the Danube Basin, begun in 

 the fiscal year 1922, is the first contribution to the world survey. 

 Kesults of this survey were published in five mimeographed reports. 

 These reports were later combined and will be used as one section of 

 the world report. 



A survey of the agriculture of France, with special reference to 

 the changes caused by the war, was planned. Work was begun on 

 surveys of Denmark, Germany, and Poland. Plans were made for a 

 survey of the fruit-growing regions of the Mediterranean Basin. The 

 representative who was located at Buenos Aires as agricultural com- 

 missioner made a survey of the agriculture of Chile and Peru. A 

 preliminary survey was made of agricultural conditions and of agri- 

 cultural production in Manchuria, and some data were collected rela- 

 tive to the agriculture of China. 



ANALYSIS OF FOREIGN MARKETS AND PRICES. 



Analysis of international trade and prices for all agricultural com- 

 modities has been started. International trade practices, tariffs, 



