60 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



COOPERATION AND INVESTIGATION. 



Cooperation is going on between the Weather Bureau and other 

 Government bureaus and departments in several different lines of 

 activities. Among them will be noted the keeping of records of tem- 

 perature, rainfall, and depth of snow, as well as the distribution of 

 special forecasts and warnings by the officials of several other 

 branches of the Government service. Among the most important 

 are the following: (1) The publication of the monthly crop report 

 at 40 different Weather Bureau stations in the United States for the 

 Bureau of Crop Estimates. These reports cover the crop conditions 

 in every State in the Union. No material change has been made 

 during the year, although plans are in progress for improving these 

 published reports by including a general statement of the weather 

 conditions and a running statement of the crop conditions. (2) 

 Cooperation with the Office of Markets and Eural Organization in 

 the publication of daily market reports. This service was in opera- 

 tion from May 9 to June 12 at Chattanooga, Tenn., in connection 

 with the strawberry crop. Market information was telegraphed to 

 our official at Chattanooga and daily bulletins were prepared and 

 issued at that office. 



SPECIAL FRUIT STUDIES. 



Studies are going on as to temperature variations at different alti- 

 tudes in North Carolina, Oregon, Colorado, and Ohio, and investiga- 

 tions have been continued in connection with temperature and frost 

 forecasts for the benefit of those fruit growers who are heating 

 their orchards, and information has been gathered as to the value of 

 these heaters and the expense of orchard protection. These matters 

 are of very great importance, and it is hoped that funds will be in 

 hand for a considerable extension of this investigation, particularly 

 along the line of frost damage and the best heating methods. 



Five sets of maximum and minimum thermometers have been 

 furnished to the Bureau of Entomology for use in fruit orchards at 

 Kanawha Station, Wood Count}', W. Va., in connection with the 

 study of weather effects on the fruit trees and on the activities of 

 damaging insects. This service was put into operation in May, 

 1916. Two full sets of instruments were also furnished to Prof. 

 E. P. Felt, for use at Newfane, near Lockport, N". Y., and Kendal, 

 near Albion, N. Y., to study the relation between the weather and 

 the damage done by the codling moth. It is believed that the even- 

 ing temperatures have an important influence upon the deposit of 

 the eggs of this moth, and this investigation is to determine some 

 facts regarding that matter. Four sets of instruments that had 

 been in use in central Massachusetts by Prof. J. K. Shaw, of the 

 College of Agriculture, at Amherst, Mass.. in studying the weather 

 conditions at different elevations and its effect upon the apple crop, 

 were moved in the spring of 1916 to the Berkshire Hills in western 

 Massachusetts, where a study was carried on to determine the connec- 

 tion between inversions in temperature in relation to the development 

 of peach buds. 



COOPERATION WITH EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



Correspondence was begun early in the season with the directors 

 of all the agricultural experiment stations in the United States, 



