296 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE. 



The administrative office of the bureau, under the direct super- 

 vision of the chief of bureau, the assistant chief of bureau, and the 

 chief clerk, effected various improvements in methods of filing bureau 

 records, keeping account of bureau finances and property, and in 

 supervising and facilitating the work of the office and field force, as 

 well as directing activities of the bureau and looking after the in- 

 creased volume of correspondence. 



The records show a large increase in the amount of work performed 

 in the office of the chief clerk and by the bureau as a whole. In the 

 multigraph section there was an increase of 22.6 per cent in the 

 number of jobs handled on the multigraph and mimeograph ma- 

 chines, 20.8 per cent in the number of copies run, 113 per cent in the 

 number of copies folded, and 108 per cent in the number of lines 

 printed, over the fiscal year 1916. For the truck crop section alone 

 there was an increase of 36 per cent in the number of copies printed 

 and folded during 1917 over 1916. The increase in the duplicating 

 work is significant when it is remembered that several of the field 

 agents have been supplied with mimeograph machines and now do 

 their own form-letter work. 



The increase in the activities of the bureau is reflected especially 

 in the number of envelopes used, the increase in 1917 over 1916 being 

 approximately 65 per cent. 



Additional field men have been employed, and those already in 

 the service have enlarged the- scope of their investigations, all of 

 which has greatly augmented the work of the accounting, supply, 

 and multigraph sections. The work in the supply section has in- 

 creased to such an extent that the appointment of an additional 

 laborer is recommended. In the accounting section the number of 

 clerks is one less than it was three jeavs ago. 



During the fiscal year just closed preliminary steps were taken 

 largely to increase the mechanical equipment of the bureau. Wlien 

 completed the bureau will be in a much better position to cope with 

 the rapidly increasing volume of mail entailed by the widening scope 

 of the bureau's investigations. 



Because of growth in force, equipment, and volume of business, the 

 bwreau is badly handicapped by lack of sufficient space. 



DIVISION OF CROP REPORTS. 



The work of the Division of Crop Reports, under the direct 

 supervision of Mr. Edward Crane, chief of division, increased 

 nearly 50 per cent during the fiscal year 1917, the total number 

 of schedules and circulars handled by the division exceeding 2,000,000. 

 This increase was largely due to the rapid growth of the truck crop 

 investigations and to numerous special inquiries relating to minor 

 crops and to particular phases of staple-crop and live-stock produc- 

 tion. The work of this division consists mainly in the preparation 

 of crop schedules several months in advance of their use, the 

 mailing out of schedules to the field agents and voluntary crop re- 

 porters, the opening, sorting, and classifying of the returned sched- 

 ules, the editing, checking, tabulating, adding, and averaging of the 

 returns, and the maintenance of lists of crop and special voluntary 

 reporters. The data collected and compiled by this division, supple- 



