THE PEASANT S UNION AND PEASANTS SECRETARIAT 15 



tions for voluntary insurance have not yet been begun. During the discuss- 

 ion as to insurance against accidents the union brought forward proposals 

 as to agriculture which were accepted. It proposed finally that the fores- 

 ters of communes should in particular all be insured. 



As regards the revision of commercial treaties, of which one with Italy 

 was denounced innnediately before the end of the year, the Peasants' Se- 

 cretariat continued to prepare for the new agreements to be made. The 

 union also undertook much other business as to the export and import of 

 certain merchandise and relative custom duties, the inspection of wines at 

 the frontier, post office savings banks, the agricultural press, aliens, the 

 federal grant for research as to the productiveness of agriculture, and the 

 federal grants to the federation of the agricultural societies of Romanic 

 Switzerland and in aid of vegetable gardening. 



§ 2. Office of information as to prices. 



From the report which this office presented to the Swiss Peasants' 

 Union it appears that its activity had the following forms : 



a) The collection of reports from which extracts were made ; 



b) The publication of a review of the markets ; and the supply of 

 information as to the course of production, the position of the markets and 

 the price of agricvdtural products ; 



c) The supply of information as to the international market for milk 

 and dairy produce ; 



d) The collection of material for drawing up reports to be sent to 

 the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome. 



This office has recently assumed a growing importance which is reflected 

 in all its branches. In 1916 it sent out 11,239 circulars and communica- 

 tions of which 8,725 were in German, 1,823 ^^ French, 309 in Italian and 301 

 in English. The number of its correspondents has not been diminished in 

 spite of the special circumstances due to the war and the fact that a certain 

 number of them have been called to serve in the army. Correspondents 

 who were obliged definitely to resign have been replaced. 7,183 were in this 

 case. 



The especial circumstances due to the war obliged the office to devote 

 particular attention to the statistics as to Swiss crops. The office un- 

 dertook the following enquiries : 



i) An enquiry as to modifications in the area on which cereals and po- 

 tatoes are grown (about 900 correspondents). 2) An enquiry as to the 

 average yield per hectare (i). 3) An enquiry as to the Swiss potato harvest 

 in 1916 (600 correspondents). An enquiry, pursued in 1,643 communes, 

 as to the quantity of fruit which could be sold during the autumn of 1916. 



' (i) I hectare = 2.47 acres. 



