BUREAU OF STATISTICS. 787 



county. A system of tabulating the returns from township corre- 

 spondents by districts has also been introduced, permitting a more 

 satisfactory comparison of these returns. 



The names, location, and records of correspondents are kept in 

 this division. The magnitude of the detail work incident to the col- 

 lection of required information is indicated by the fact that 1,930 

 days' labor were required during the past year to maintain the lists 

 of voluntary correspondents. 



The number of inquiries mailed from this division to the regular 

 monthly correspondents in 1912, as compared with the number 

 mailed in the year 1911, increased 5 per cent. The regular schedules 

 of inquiry for the past year contained 39 more questions than those 

 of the previous year. 



The time of this division is principally employed on work con- 

 nected with the monthly crop reports, but much has been done in 

 tabulating and computing data connected with special inquiries for 

 this bureau and other bureaus of the department. During the past 

 year 85.8 per cent of the time was devoted to crop reports, 12.9 per 

 cent to work for other divisions, and 1.3 per cent to work for other 

 bureaus, compared with 76.8 per cent for crop reports, 22.9 per cent 

 for other divisions, and 0.3 per cent for other bureaus in 1911. The 

 time chargeable to the crop report, which decreased from 96.1 per 

 cent in 1907 to 74.9 per cent in 1910, is again tending upward, owing 

 to the increase in special inquiries and other work chargeable to the 

 crop report. 



Although there has been an increase of about 275 per cent in the 

 work since 1907, the force, which averaged 45 clerks in that year, 

 and 43 in 1910 and 1911, was but 42 in 1912. The work has in- 

 creased from year to year and now taxes to the limit the ability of 

 the clerical force to dispose of it. Any further expansion must be 

 met by an increase in the number of clerks. 



DIVISION OF PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION. 



This division is engaged in a wide range of work. An investiga- 

 tion during the last fiscal year was concerned with the economic 

 results of cold storage and the relationship of cold storage to prices. 

 The basic materials of this work were returns made by cold-storage 

 warehouses in all parts of the country, covering their business for 

 two years, with details of commodities received and delivered during 

 each month of the two years. Much subsidiary information was 

 obtained from many other sources, all of a statistical character. 

 The aggregate information obtained in this investigation consti- 

 tutes, in variety and mass, much the largest body of facts concerning 

 this business in its economic aspect that has been collected. 



The latest comprehensive investigation of the wage rates of farm 

 labor was completed during the past year, so that the department 

 now has a record of averages of such wage rates for each State, for 

 jreographic divisions of States, and for tlie United States extending 

 back to 1866. A simultaneous investigation was conducted with 

 regard to the supply of such labor, and this constitutes the first com- 

 ])rehensive treatise that has been published on this subject. 



For a long time requests for a list of agricultural fairs and ex- 

 hibitions, addressed to this department, have had to be answered with 



