704 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol.38 



international problem. The Institute has, however, endeavored 

 through its permanent committee and general assembly to bring 

 about an improvement in this direction and considerable progress is 

 reported. It is announced that the agricultural statistical service 

 in several countries has been organized entirely or in part on the 

 basis recommended by the Institute, and that in a number of others 

 greater uniformity in methods of reporting data has been secured. 



The statistical work of the Institute is centered in the Bureau of 

 General Statistics. This bureau has published monthly since 1910 

 the Bulletin of Agricultural and Commercial Statistics^ each number 

 now averaging about forty pages and issued in French, English, 

 German, Italian, and Spanish editions. It constitutes a monthly 

 international compilation of data furnished by the respective coun- 

 tries as to the most important crops, and despite many difficulties 

 and limitations, supplies much data not previously available in so 

 complete a form. During the present year a supplementary series, 

 known as Documentary Leaflets, has been added, these comprising 

 data on miscellaneous agricultural projects of tropical countries. 

 Two semi-annual reviews are prepared, one dealing with the statistics 

 of cereals and the other with the international movement of fertili- 

 zers and chemicals useful to agriculture. Most of these data, to- 

 gether with other information, are subsequently assembled into the 

 voluminous International Annual of Agricultural Statistics. Several 

 monographs dealing with special phases of statistical work have 

 also been issued. Among them may be mentioned Les hoses theo- 

 riques de la statistique agricole internationale, published in 1914, 

 which discusses in detail the principles to be followed in organizing 

 agricultural statistical services. 



As a recent statement by the Institute points out, " an international 

 institute of agriculture can not be conceived which has no service 

 designed to supply the nations with information of every sort regard- 

 ing the increasing progress along technical lines in every branch of 

 agriculture." This essential function is intrusted to the Bureau of 

 Agricultural Intelligence and Plant Diseases. This Bureau pub- 

 lishes a monthly abstract journal in five languages, as well as mono- 

 graphs on current questions from time to time. 



The abstract journal, which has special interest to readers of the 

 Record, was established in 1910 under the name of the Monthly Bul- 

 letin of Agricultural Intelligence and Plant Diseases, but has re- 

 cently been rechristened the Inteimational Review of the Science and 

 Practice of Agriculture. Originally it contained both abstracts and 

 original articles, but of late it has restricted itself to the abstracting 

 of current literature. It is stated that about 1,000 publications are 

 regularly abstracted, and from 1,300 to 1,400 abstracts are published 



