192 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



cerning the acreage, the condition of the growing crops, and, soon 

 after harvest, of ascertaining the production and vahie of the princi- 

 pal crops of the year. It was in charge of the Division of Statistics, 

 now a bureau. 



For many years this system remained unchanged, until about 1896 

 a corps of township correspondents was established as a part of the 

 crop-reporting system to duplicate in form the monthly reports 

 made by county correspondents and State statistical agents. 



Late in the nineties an important improvement of the system then 

 existing was inagurated by the employment of a corps of field agents, 

 each one of whom was to cover several States, throughout which he 

 was to travel constantly, so as to be in personal touch with crop con- 

 ditions and other subjects for which he was to make monthly reports. 

 The improvement of the crop-reporting service due to this innova- 

 tion was A'ery great and has been increased from year to year by the 

 employment of more field agents, by reducing the area covered by 

 them, and by their increasing skill and accuracy in observation and 

 estimate. 



Previous to the summer of 1905 the monthly crop report was made 

 by the chief of the Bureau of Statistics, perhaps after some discus- 

 sion with members of the office force and during a very few years 

 with one or more of the field agents. 



For several years before 1905 the system had improved, but in the 

 year mentioned it broke down in a manner that had hardly been 

 supposed to be possible. The use of the information of the monthly 

 crop report during the growing season, in advance of its publication, 

 had always presented temptation to those in possession of the infor- 

 mation to use it in taking advantage of the speculative market in 

 produce exchanges, but the men who could have made such informa- 

 tion available had always been trusted and no breach of trust had 

 ever been established against anyone. Besides this, the circum- 

 stances under which the crop reports were made were such as to be 

 regarded as making the premature surreptitious private use of the 

 report practically impossible without prompt discovery. 



In the spring of 1905 it was discovered that one of the employees 

 engaged in the crop-reporting service in the bureau office had been 

 secretly anticipating the crop report by speculating in produce ex- 

 changes in association with other men to whom he had prematurely 

 divulged the report. This caused radical changes in the method of 

 preparing this report and in the circumstances under which the work 

 was done. A crop-reporting board was established, composed of the 

 chief of the bureau as chairman and four other members, whose 

 services were brought into requisition each crop-reporting day from 

 the statisticians and officials of the bureau and the special field and 

 State statistical services. The personnel of the board was changed 



