412 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



by imports. In the process of workin<r to these conclusions many 

 statistical facts are invohcd, such as national production, acreage, 

 production per acre, and per capita of the population, total and per 

 <'ai)ita consumption, and the ratio of exports to production and of 

 imports to consumjjtion : and the statistics and relationships amon<jj 

 tliem are carried haclc, ^vhere possible, at least to the estimates of 

 crop production made by this bureau in 18GG, to the first agricul- 

 tural census for l.s.V.). and in some cases to years much earlier, and, 

 for foreign trade, at least to the fiscal year beginning in 1S50, some- 

 times back to the beginning of the Kepublic, and even earlier. 



These tables are little concerned with prices and values; the im- 

 portant fact for their purpose is the product, and not its worth. Yet 

 there is some effort to state both price and value. Tn connection 

 witii the essential plan of these records, numerous subsidiary tables 

 and explanations have been accumulated. This great mass of infor- 

 mation has provided ready responses to numerous and constant re- 

 quests, whereas for want of this previous preparation a response 

 often could not have been made or, at the best, only after the lapse 

 of considerable time. Substantially all of this matter awaits pub- 

 lication. 



Three Yearbook articles and one department bulletin, containing 

 results of this investigation, have already been published. The Year- 

 book articles related to wool, hides, and tobacco, and the bulletin 

 summarized the data on potatoes. 



WEEKLY CROP NOTES. 



Weekly reports on crop conditions are transmitted by the bureau's 

 agricultural statisticians in the different States to the Washington 

 office, where they are summarized and edited on Monday and Tues- 

 day of each week. These summaries, which give the principal recent 

 changes in crop and live-stock conditions, are mimeographed, and an 

 edition of about 350 copies is run off primarily for the information 

 and guidance of the department heads and the field service, and with 

 a limited distril)ution to farmers' organizations, publications, State 

 agricultural workeis. business agencies, etc. 



The editing and summarizing of these statisticians' reports is in 

 charge of a specialist, with one assistant. 



ESTIMATES OF SUGAR CROPS. 



In connection with the project of crop recording and abstracting, 

 estimates are made of the sugar crops of the United States and 

 Hawaii. The cane and beet-sugar reports, being practically an 

 annual census and confined to a relativel}^ small number of pro- 

 ducers, are conveniently handled in connection with crop recording 

 and abstracting. During the fiscal j'ear 1920 the beet-sugar reports 

 included estimates of acreage planted, five monthly forecasts of beet 

 and sugar production, preliminary report in December of acreage 

 and production of beets, also output of sugar, production and 

 acreage of sugar-beet seed, and in April, 1920, final report of acreage, 

 production, and price of sugar beets, and production of sugar. 

 Estimates of sugar cane consisted of two reports on acreage for each 

 State; one on sirup production; five monthly forecasts of the 



