The International Institute of Agriculture. 133 



the other hand, the systematic collection and dissemination of 

 scientific information is seldom attempted by existing agricul- 

 tural departments, and from every point of view there are 

 excellent reasons for such work being done on an international 

 basis, provided it is done well. The Institute is only in its 

 infancy, but no one who has had the opportunity of examining 

 and making use of its many publications is likely to deny that 

 the work which it undertook to do, ambitious as most people 

 thought it at the time, is being well done, and that there is 

 every reason to believe that it will be still better done in the 

 future. 



The Convention of June 7, 1905, defined the principal duty 

 of the Institute in the following words : " To collect, elaborate, 

 and publish, with as little delay as possible, statistical, technical, 

 or economic information regarding the cultivation of the soil, 

 its production, whether animal or vegetable, the trade in 

 agricultural products, and the prices obtained on the various 

 markets." It is impossible to deal with each of its publications 

 separately, but by taking the three heads, statistical, technical, 

 and economic, it may be possible to indicate briefly the 

 Institute's field of work. 



Agricultural Statistics. 



When Mr. David Lubin proposed to the King of Italy the 

 foundation of the Institute, he had in his mind one main idea, 

 viz., an official "single numerical statement" of the world's 

 production of each important crop. He was familiar with the 

 " single numerical statement " for the United States which 

 had been published for some years by the U.S. Department of 

 Agriculture. This statement shows at a glance how the pro- 

 duction in each of the States of the Union and in the United 

 States as a whole, compared with an " average " year. Mr. 

 Lubin's idea was to arrange for the publication of a similar 

 statement for each of the countries of the world, and for the 

 world as a whole. As might have been expected in a project of 

 this magnitude, the difficulties encountered were enormous, 

 and, as a result of experience, the original scheme has been 

 modified. Already, however, the Institute can point to some 

 notable achievements. Several important producing countries 

 which at the time the Institute began work had never pub- 

 lished official crop reports, have now inaugurated systems which 

 enable them to send reports to the Institute in accordance 

 with a plan adopted by the General Assembly. A number 

 of other covmtries have modified their systems of crop reporting 

 so as to harmonise with the plan adopted by the Institute. 

 Such results could not have been achieved by any other means 

 than official international co-operation. 



