344 DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS. 



restricting its usefulness. Few Government bureaus, civil or mili- 

 tary, have their ©iterations extending, as has this office, into the 

 remotest and most sparsely populated civil divisions of the countrj'. 

 Were the correspondents emi)loyed in the collection of cro^j intelli- 

 gence paid a fair rate of compensation for the service they render, 

 the cost of maintaining an organization five times as numerous as the 

 census enumerators would call attention, as probably nothing else 

 will, to the magnitude of the Department's statistical service. But 

 the fact that the reports upon which the work of the Division of .Statis- 

 tics so largely depends are made without compensation in no wise 

 diminishes the amount of labor involved in their compilation and 

 analysis; indeed, the list of correspondents is more difficult to keej) up 

 to the necessar}' standard in number, if not in qualit}', than it would 

 be if it consisted of persons adequately remunerated for their services. 

 The new dii'ections in which the work of the Division might be made 

 of service to the agricultural interests of the country if its organiza- 

 tion were made more elastic b}' its conversion into a bureau and the 

 appropriation for its maintenance were made more adequate to its 

 needs are so numerous that an addition of $50,000 to the present 

 api^ropriation would not be an excessive provision for the new work 

 that could at once be undertaken. 



THE STATISTICAL LIBRARY. 



While there is no branch of statistics having any close relation to 

 the agricultural industry that is not more or less adequately' repre- 

 sented in the Department's statistical library, as regards the litera- 

 ture of ijrices it is believed to be the best equipf)ed liljrary in the 

 country, and no reasonable expejiditure that may be necessary to 

 naintain its present high standard should be withheld. Its card 

 index to agricultural statistics is also pronounced by visitors who have 

 occasion to consult it to be exceptionally complete and well arranged, 

 and reasonable provision for its continuation is recommended. 



O" 



