have been steadily improving on those monthlies all summer, and you have 

 now reached a point apparently but little short of perfection. Doubtless you 

 will, in coming years, have more reporters, better trained, and covering a larger 

 territory, and so your summaries will be more accurate and reliable ; but already 

 it is manifest that your method is most admirable. I confess that the suggestion 

 of the 'Country Gentleman,' that you should have an additional column or col- 

 umns giving the amount of the principal grains in store, (of the production of 

 former years,) struck me as a valuable one, worthy of being adopted. I com- 

 mend it to your consideration. I am amazed that you have had such success in 

 the matter of statistics in so short a time. Those columns of dry figures are 

 eloquent. They are going to exert a tremendous influence. Just see what 

 they have done this season. When your last monthly came out corn was sell- 

 ing here at %\ 10 ; straightway it rose to $1 30, and no one wants to sell at 

 that. Those little bulletins are going to regulate the markets. They will 

 guide the producer in selling his crops, and protect him from the speculator. 

 This Avill be an incalculable benefit. Now, see how it is about wool. Wool- 

 buyers get their wool as they can. The price is not fixed, because the data are 

 not known. Before next spring's clip comes to market you will have need to 

 learn how many sheep will be sheared, and the amount of the clip ; also the 

 clip of preceding years, and the domestic and foreign consumption. There is a 

 general impression that more sheep Avill be sheared next spring than were 

 sheared last sjiriiig. Who knows] I take it these statistical tables are to be 

 for the protection of the producers. I consider the monthly reports of great 

 worth, and carefully lay them by for future reference. Don't underrate the 

 figures. The nine digits ai-e to do the business." 



With opinions like these is associated the fact that the most influential com- 

 mercial ])apers refer to the tables of crops as authority governing commerce in 

 them. Whilst all this is gratifying to the Commissioner of Agriculture, it im- 

 poses upon him a responsibility that weighs heavily, and pi'ompts him to bring 

 before the public matters essential to a full development of the plan, as yet im- 

 perfectly seen, in the published reports. 



This plan is based on circulars issued to regular correspondents in every 

 county, asking of them answers to interrogatories concerning the cond tion of 

 the crops, their comparison in amount with the crops of the preceding year, and 

 such other matters as an intelligent and careful person can answer with an ac- 

 curacy sufficiently near for all practical purposes. These answers are given in 

 a form that admits their compilation into tables, and may be extended into fuller 

 tables of bushels, pounds, and tons, as occasion may require. 



But necessary to these fuller tables is a basis on which to estimate the amount 

 of the crops, and it is to the ex'ent of this basis, and the viamier in which it 

 should be made, that public attention is now called in this article. 



1. Tke extent of the basis. 



Those who have examined the last two monthly reports will have seen how 

 much reference is made to commercial matters. The writer just quoted concurs 

 in the criticism that these reports should have stated the ''grains in store" as au 

 element of supply This is true, but such statement would embody a commer- 

 cial fact, and over cimmercial statistics this Departmenthas no power authorizing 

 their collection. For great practical purposes it is impossible to separate statis- 

 tics of agriculture from those of nianufacture and commerce. Now, thy basts 

 upon Avhieh to deteruiiue the amount of crops, and their value as affected by 

 home and foreign demand, must by found in a census of all these statistics. 

 They cannot be separated without impairing the value of each. Hence the 

 powers of this D 'p irtment should embrace all subjects of a statistical character 

 pertaining to m uiufactures and commerce, as well as to agriculture. Those 

 nations that have given most regard to the industrial pursuits have ministers 

 for their advancement, and their official duty has extended to all alike. And 



