the establishment of this Department that the heads of its different divi- 

 sions, representing diiferent branches of agriculture and horticulture, could 

 maintain a correspondence that would aid in developing principles through 

 the facts communicated, and, in this way, advance the agriculture of the 

 country. But is such correspondence to be confined to the writers of the 

 letters and the Department ? Shall the botanist, or the entomologist, or the 

 chemist, or the statistician, write five or ten or twenty letters daily to as . 

 many persons, on sul)jects belonging to their respective divisions, and which 

 as much concern as many hundred thousand, or shall all have a like oppor- 

 tunity to know, by their publication ? 



Considerations like these imperatively demanded the publication of the 

 Bi-monthly Reports. But, in establishing them for these purposes, the 

 Department has most carefully avoided occupying any ground that belonged 

 to the agricultural press, by disregarding local topics and the details of 

 general ones. General subjects, and such as demanded immediate discus- 

 sion, like those named, are alone considered in these reports. If such do 

 not belong to the Bi-monthly Report, then they do not to the Annual Report. 

 If the Department cannot thus discuss agricultural subjects, it has no right 

 to distribute a single seed, or plant, or bulb, because, in so doing, it may 

 be supposed to come in conflict with individual interests. If it cannot do 

 these things, then it has no right to collect any agricultural statistics 

 for the general advantage of producers and consumers, lest it may come in 

 contact with those who are gathering such statistics for their own special 

 purposes and interests. And if it cannot do any or all of these things, then 

 the Department has no right to exist at all. 



A more just view of the appropriate action of the Department will regard 

 these reports as an aid, rather than a hindrance, to the agricultural press, 

 by calling the attention of all to subjects of general interest, which cannot 

 but create a general desire for that extended discussion of details and local 

 application which it is the province of the agricultural press to give. 



Having thus briefly stated the purposes of the Bi-monthly Reports, the 

 Commissioner would call attention to two articles in the present one. 



1. On agricultural statistics. The Department, during the past year, has 

 been testing the mode adopted to collect and publish the state of the crops 

 and condition of the farm stock. That test has been satisfactory, and shows 

 that the plan may be entirely relied upon for an approximation sufficiently 

 near the facts for the practical purpose of determining prices so far as sup- 

 ply should govern them. There is a great and an increasing interest in the 

 collection of such statistics; and State Agricultural Societies, seeking to 

 obtain them, may learn from it that correspondents and country societies 

 cannot answer correctly as to the number of bushels, or pounds or tons of a 

 product, but can reliably state, in tenths or hundredths, the present crop 

 in comparison with that of the last year. How their returns aid in estimat- 

 ing the bushels, and pounds and tons, will also be seen. Many difficulties 

 which now exist will be removed by a future speedy publication of the 

 census returns of the crops and stock for the counties. 



