tistics 1 These considerations cannot be unconsidered when Congress shall de- 

 termine to create a bureau of statistics. 



Besides the immediate power to collect statistics of manufactures and com- 

 merce by circulars, and the ulterior one of having a bureau of statistics, with 

 authority to take a census every fifth year, this Department should have some 

 means to reward its regular correspondents. It sends them now its monthly 

 and annual reports, but these aire insiifficient. To aid tliem in their duties, each 

 one of them should have an unabridged report of the census, for these only 

 exhibit the productions of each county. Hence two thousand copies of these 

 should be placed at the disposal of this Department for these correspondents. 

 It would be proper, too, when reports and documents are printed in large num- 

 bers for general distribution, to have the same number of copies of each distri- 

 buted to them through this Department. As the correspondents are in every 

 county, and selected with reference to their intelligence, these documents could 

 not be placed in more useful hands. Their services, unpaid in any other man- 

 ner, merit this appi'oval on the part of Congress. 



It is true that the primary motive with them is to advance their occupation 

 by aiding a Department which has been established to promote such advance- 

 ment. To this eflPect is the entire sentiment as expressed by them. " We are 

 well pleased," says one from Wisconsin, " with the valuable statistics in your 

 monthly reports. It seems as though we could not do without them now. We 

 consider ourselves a thousand times paid for our own trouble." Whilst the 

 generous sentiment contained in the last sentence is held by all our correspond- 

 ents, it is still due to them that their valuable co-operation should be acknowl 

 edged in the manner suggested. Their aid must become essential in many 

 things. It is very certain that meteorological observations must have a far 

 greater extent, if the peculiarities of our climates are to be understood. The 

 isothermal lines do not indicate these, because of their generality ; nor do the 

 reports of the fall of rain exhibit the true quantities, because these reports 

 embrace too few observations. The remarkable peculiarities of the Mississippi 

 valley climate, the great agricultural region of the country, is almost unknown 

 in our books. Its droughts and rains, its frosts, snows, and cold storms, have 

 never been-studied in detail, because sufficient observations have not been made 

 to present these details. Hence our correspondents should be furnished with a 

 rain-gauge and thermometer, and gradually ti'ained to take as full observations 

 as now made by the Smithsonian observers. Men so useful should be encour- 

 aged in their voluntary services. 



As it is a purpose of the monthly reports to give timely information of every 

 matter bearing on the commercial value of the products of labor, the foreign . 

 crops need to be known, especially of England, and of those nations that com- 

 pete with the United States in its markets. The want of European agricultural 

 statistics has ever stood in the way, both there and here, of an intelligent com- 

 prehension of the state of supply there, and of the probable demand upon our 

 own agricultural products. The reports of the present year of English crops 

 show this. During harvest, and until recently, these crops were stated to be 

 unusually large ; but now these reports are much modified. "The early estimates 

 of the cereal crop," says the New York Shipping and Commercial List, " it now 

 appears, were too liberal; besides which the failure of the potato crop in Ireland 

 will necessitate a greater demand for breadstuff's." 



This Department has had some correspondence with a few of our consuls in 

 Europe, and it has no doubt that, without conflicting with their special duties as 

 consuls, much important agricultural information by circulars can be obtained 

 through them. Their services are needed to place this Department in communi- 

 cation with European and other agricultural societies, that mutual information 

 may be given by interchange of reports, and by other methods. To establish 

 a systematic action among these, yet diversified as the peculiar agricultural and 



