418 
STATISTICAL MISSION. rs 
The Statistician of this Department was commissioned, in May last, as 
its representative at the International Exhibition at Vienna, Austria, and 
was also instructed to investigate the status of agricultural statistics, 
and the means and appliances used in official statistical collection in 
the countries of Western Europe. He also received a commission from 
the State Department to the same exhibition. 
An incidental purpose of the mission was to study the possibilities of 
the inauguration of an international system of crop reports. No offi- 
cial system of reporting the condition of growing crops was found in 
operation, and no systematic attempts at such reports are essayed, ex- 
cept in a few instances, as in the case of London newspapers, which col- 
lect, somewhat systematically, the opinions of their correspondents rela- 
tive to the grain yield. Suggestions of a practical nature upon this 
subject are reserved for future elaboration. 
The government offices of London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, were 
visited, and every facility was courteously furnished for investigation of 
their statistical methods and their operations in aid of agriculture. 
The official representatives of the United States at these seats of gov- 
ernment promptly rendered all desired aid ‘in procuring facilities for 
such investigation. There is great diversity in the organization, scope, 
and action of the agricultural departments of these governments. Some 
are connected with other branches of administration, and others are in- 
vested with the dignity of full departments. An increasing importance 
is of late accorded to them, and they are evidently becoming more effi- 
cient and useful. They are generally organized upon a foundation of 
less breadth than that of our own, but pursue investigation with great- 
er tenacity and thoroughness, and are enabled to do so by more liberal » 
appropriations of money, thereby rendering their special reports of 
greater value. Their annual reports are of less interest, and do not 
appear to have a very extended circulation. An exposition of the main 
features in the organization will hereafter be given in the monthly or 
annual reports. 
A period of ninety days allotted to such a mission was found quite 
too short for the investigation and travel involved, and but four weeks 
could be spent in Austria at the Weli Austerlung, the Ackerbaw minis- 
terium, at field trials of machinery, public and private exhibitions of 
farm animals, and in rural observation of the methods of practical agri-- 
culture. A mass of statistical data, a great variety of official and other 
publications, were collected, and will be utilized in future numbers of 
these reports. An assignment, by the Scientific and Artisan Commis- 
sion, of the subject, ‘Wools of the exhibition,” was accepted, and a 
report will be made to the State Department. A formal report of the 
agricultural features of the exhibition in detail is not deemed desirable, 
full publicity having already been achieved in the periodicals of the 
day, but all that is deemed suggestive and valuable will be presented 
in connection with technical and statistical data, much of which is yet 
to be translated and prepared for specific presentation. 
The American portion of the exhibition, of which so much has been 
unjustly said, was not so complete as it should have been, nor was it so 
meager as has been represented. In mowing and reaping machines it 
was represented fully, and in the experimental trial few competitors 
were found, and undoubtedly no successful competition could have been 
