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MONTHLY EEPOET ^^1,1%. 



COIDITION OF THE CROPS. 



Department of Agriculture, 



WasJdngton, July 10, 1863. 



Tlie Commissioner of Agriculture submits to tlie consideration of the farming 

 community the following monthly reports of the condition of the crops for the 

 months of May and June, together with such matters of the weather as con- 

 nect themselves with these crops. For the meteorological observations he is 

 indebted to the Smithsonian Institution, under the direction of Prof. Henry ; 

 and the farmers of the country owe much to that Institution, and to the observers 

 connected with it, who, in the different sections of the country, with patient watch- 

 fulness, note the flying clouds, mark the changing weather, and gauge the falling 

 rain, unsalaried and unpaid, save in the consciousness of doing a good work. 



He is assured, from the workings of the system adopted to obtain information 

 of the growing crops, of its general correctness and great utility. Whatever 

 imperfections it may now have will be speedily overcome, as its practical opera- 

 tion will be more fully understood by his correspondents, and Congress grants to 

 him facilities for the attainment of his object. He looks, too, with confident 

 assurance to the ready co-operation which the secretaries of agricultixral societies 

 and clubs can give him, by carefully prepared answers to his circulars 



Hereafter a similar report will be issued on the tenth day of every mouth ; 

 and that this may be done with promptness, the Commissioner requests all cor- 

 respondents and observers to transmit their answers and reports to him on the 

 first day of every month, as more fully stated in the following report. 



ISAAC NEWTON, Commissioner. 



(from the department of agriculture.) 

 MAY AND JUNE, 1863. 



The Agricultural Department, in issuing its first monthly report of the con- 

 dition of the crops, desires to make known its purpose in preparing these reports, 

 and the means it has adopted to collect the information embraced in them. 



1. No nation has ever developed such agricultural resources as the United 

 States, whether the amount and the variety of its products, or their relations 

 to manufactures and commerce, are considered. The amount of the capital it 

 has invested in lands and farming implements is nearly seven billions of dol- 

 lars, producing an annual value of two and a half billions of dollars. It em- 

 ploys and directly supports about seventeen millions of the population of the 



