495 



INTERNATIONAL STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE AND 



FORESTRY. 



The Secretary of State lias referred to this Department a commuui- 

 cation from the Austrian ministry of foreign affairs, received through 

 Baron Lederer, Austrian minister resident at New York, inclosing the 

 ''decisions" of the "first international congress of agriculture and 

 forestry," held during the Vienna Exposition of 1873, upon several 

 leading points. An abstract of these decisions is herewith presented : 



I. In regard to tlie measures to be taken for the protection of birds 

 useful to agriculture. 



The congress determined to petition the imperial and royal govern- 

 ment of Austria to conclude treaties with other governments embracing 

 the following points : 1. To prohibit the taking or destruction of insect- 

 ivorous birds. 2. To designate an international commission of specialists 

 who shall prepare a detailed list of such birds as should be protected. 

 3. To prohibit the taking or killing of grain-feeding birds between 

 March 1 and September 15. 4. To forbid the use of nets, snares, or 

 bird-lime for the capture of birds. 5. To prohibit the taking of eggs or 

 young of birds, or the derangement of their nests, except in the case of 

 injurious birds specified by the international commission. 6. To prohibit 

 the exposure for sale of any insectivorous bird, dead or alive. This 

 prohibition applies to grain-feeding birds during the time in which it is 

 unlawful to molest them, as well as to the nests and eggs of all birds not 

 officially classed as injurious. 7. Siiecial cases, in the interest of science, 

 may be excepted from the operation of these rules. 



II. What sections of agricultural and forest statistics, and what 

 methods of abstract presentation of facts, render it desirable that an 

 international agreement take place in order to obtain results susceptible 

 of comparison. 



The congress expresses the conviction that agricultural and forest 

 exploitation, as now developed, cannot give statistical data sufficiently 

 exact for comparison upon its actual condition and progress in different 

 countries. The efforts of international statistical administration, hitherto, 

 have been hisufficient to meet this necessity, which can oulj be met by 

 researches of specialists in the matter, and upon the basis of common 

 agreement between governments. This agreement should fix the 

 stand-point of investigation, and arrange a uniform programme, expos- 

 ing clearly what should be the aim of the statistical abstracts and the 

 meaning of the nomenclature adopted. The governments should be 

 pledged to each other for the execution, as regularly as possible, of the 

 programme, and for the intercommunication of the results obtained. 



For this reason the congress prayed the Austrian government to take 

 the initiative steps to secure such an agreement between governments, 

 and to expedite the organization of a system of agricultural and forest 

 statistics. It is recommended that a census be taken every ten years in 

 all countries at the same time that the census of population is taken ; 

 that it should comprehend the greatest subdivision of administrative 

 districts, and especially the segregation of the most important agricul- 

 tural regions ; the area covered by agricultural and forest culture in 

 grneral ; the cultivation of the most important crops, and their medium 

 yield calculated upon the largest possible number of years ; the systems 

 of culture in use; the superficies covered with different kinds of Vorest, 



