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long and successfully taken the initiative; Minnesota and Kansas have made a brave 

 beginninj;; Iowa takes a comparatively full agricultural census biennially, and New 

 York and Massachusetts have made quite thorough work in decennial periods inter- 

 mediate to those of the national census. Other States have made partial enumerations* 

 I am glad to learn that Georgia has commenced the work, and I hope all the people 

 will aid in making it a thorough one. Most of the States have literally done nothing; 



The collection of agricultural statistics has been made an important function of the 

 Department of Agriculture, in accordance with its organic act. It gathers the official 

 records of foreigu governments, societies, technical schools, and those of individual 

 workers in experimental science; of the United States census, of State assessors, and 

 of agricultural organizations; and in addition, has an enthusiastic corps of reporters 

 in all sections of the United States, working unseltishly for the benetit of local agri- 

 culture, and for the general weal, and monthly — sometimes oftener — aiding in a com- 

 prehensive and systematic investigation upon any topic deemed practical and import- 

 ant, sometimes reaching the whole country and sometimes of limited range. The 

 work includes the reporting the condition of growing crops, the comparative area in 

 cultivation, and ultimately the estimated product. It has proved the most reliable 

 source of current information obtainable, has been increasing in efficiency, and can be 

 rendered still more efficient. It is of course not a census, and is not so regarded. In 

 the older and settled States, as to principal crops and numbers of farm animals, the 

 degree of reliability has compared favorably with the results of an average census, and in 

 some points has far exceeded in completeness and accuracy the results of several State 

 enumerations. In Kansas, for instance, it proved the assessor's enumeration of sheep 

 to be little more than half the real numbers in the State. The official enumeration of 

 farm animals, in every State or Territory west of Missouri, either by census or assessors, 

 is exceedingly incomplete. In the minor crops, and in all crops in new States, there is 

 more or less incompleteness or inaccuracy in the estimates of the Department, from the 

 present necessity of the case, as there is in many points in State and national enumer- 

 ations. 



Only Ohio has for any considerable period made such enumeration ; a few others have 

 barely commenced the work; the great State of Illinois only returns stock and two of 

 the principal crops ; and all of these publications are too late by mouths to aid iu per- 

 fecting Department estimates. There is also a difficulty in constant, sometimes enor- 

 mous, fluctuations in cultivated area. The wheat-crop in Ohio may in one year be 

 8,000,000 bushels, iu another, 28,000,000. Yet, in the settled States, especially as to prin- 

 cipal crops, approximated accuracy has been attained. For seven years the Illinois 

 estimates of each year were based respectively on those of the preceding; the esti- 

 mated percentage of the previous year's crop was returned for each county, and these 

 local returns were combined with due reference to the relative crop-value of each coun- 

 ty, to form an accurate State average. In this time, not one scintilla of aid was ob- 

 tained either from local official returns or unofficial estimates. What could be expected 

 in such a case but discrepancy? Opportunity for verification was naturally awaited 

 with misgivings. When the census was complete, the estimates and the returns ot 

 domestic animals were as nearly alike as two independent enumei'ations could be ex- 

 pected to be. The corn-crop had met suddeu disaster by early frost, and the expected 

 yield in August had been relentlessly reduced in October by more than 40 per cent., 

 equal to the enormous difference of 90,000,000 bushels; the census showed a reduction 

 only about 2 per cent. less. The figures for wheat were still closer. In fact, the sub- 

 stantial identity on all important points was remarkable. Was this mere guess-work, 

 or something more ? The same year the estimate of wheat in Minnesota was deemed 

 too large by local official authority, yet the census sustained the accuracy of the 

 national estimate, and proved the State enumeration incomplete. A highly esteemed 

 rural publicist, in New York, called in question the Department estimate of wheat of 

 the same year, as quite too higli both for New York and the entire country, and yet 

 the census figures, afterward published, were higher still. 



In the South, with a gap of years in its comparisons of production, its industrial dis- 

 turbances amounting to convulsion and partial destruction, equal accuracy was impos- 

 sible, and of course uuattaiued. Information concerning the cotton-crop has been 

 more complete and of greater accuracy than all other current data upon that subject. 

 It is true that the preliminary estimates made during the picking season have usually 

 been under rather than over the actual outcome ; and commercial estimates have usu- 

 ally been placed aboiat 10 per cent, higher. The result has been, whenever a crop 

 decidedly short has occurred, as in 1871, the commercial authorities have been sadly at 

 fault. 



As to acreage generally, of all our crops, there has been no reliable authority, no basis 

 whatever being furnished by the census, and none by States with very few exceptions. 

 The Department has attempted estimates, deducing crop- acreage from estimates of aggre- 

 gate production and estimated yield per acre. Now while a county estimate of total 

 product is liable to be slightly too low, the estimated yield per acre is quite apt to be 

 slightly too high, and if uncorrected it would necessarially make the area of crops 



