TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 579 



We get some information now as to the absorption of these great 

 commodities, but we can get a great deal more, and I made a number of 

 attempts recently to enlarge this service. I have here, for example, a 

 report on the cotton situation in Germany very carefully prepared by 

 our embassy there, in answer to a set of questions which were worked 

 out, and I have various reports on the meat industry in England worked 

 out in the same way, also relating to the American pork controversy 

 that is now going on over there. We have now a man in Australia and 

 New Zealand making studies of the dairy industry over there, because 

 those countries are going to be our principal competitors in cheese, but- 

 ter and condensed milk. We have a man now in London as an experi- 

 ment trying to study and report to us on European conditions as he sees 

 them from London. It is only a small beginning, but it seems to me 

 that such a service can be developed and be of tremendous advantage 

 to the American farmer. 



Farmers' Statistical Agency Needed. 



Now, there is one other thing needed, and this I think is funda- 

 mental, and that is the development of a farmers' statistical interpreting 

 agency. We have heard something about it, and I have seen some things 

 that leads me to believe that sooner or later you farmers will develop 

 for yourselves a statistical interpreting agency. Now, you know, the 

 government is limited in its work about collecting and presenting facts 

 without very much interpretation. We could hardly go into the business 

 of prophesying prices, but I believe if we had working with us a farmers' 

 economic committee who could tell us what they wanted, we could col- 

 lect the facts, we could turn it over to this group of men — who might 

 be live stock men in one case and grain men in another case, and let them 

 interpret and tell the farmers of this country what to do in live stock, 

 grain, cotton, or what not, what is developing in view of the world's mar- 

 kets. I believe that we need such co-operation. I believe that one of 

 the weaknesses of the statistical work of the government is that we are 

 not directly connected with the producing agency. I think that is par- 

 ticularly true of the government departments. Usually there is great 

 temptation to compile a great many things that the people do not use, 

 and that is because we are not in contact with the people who ought to 

 use them. And if this is developed, I think that there will develop a 

 use. We can develop a great deal of information that is not now being 

 used, and so I hope that organizations like this, and organizations like the 

 Farm Bureau, and others, will, just as I saw this afternoon in this room, 

 be prepared to take facts and figures and interpret them for their own 

 people. I think that is going to be necessary. It is the thing that the 

 cotton men will have to do for the cotton growers, the wool men for 

 the wool growers, the live stock men for the live stock growers and 

 feeders, and thru these great marketing agencies that are being started 

 I hope something of that kind can be worked out. 



Promoting Demand. 



Now, I might say that there is just one other thing in connection with 

 this that is possible, and that is trade promotion work. Now, I am very 



