580 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



that, having the tables always at hand, and understanding from them the in- 

 fluence of this commerce on prices, the farmer may intelligently direct his labor 

 to the culture of such crops as the statistics indicate will be most in demand. 



3. The collection of information on all subjects connected with the advance- 

 ment of agriculture. This information is obtained through circulars issued to 

 correspondents, in which inquiries are made as to the condition and amount of 

 the various crops, and also of the causes of success or failure. For want 

 of space in the present volume, the following report embraces no topics of this 

 character, but they are published in the bi-monthly reports, and will find a 

 prominent place in the next .annual report from this division. 



4. In order to accomplish the foregoing objects it became indispensably 

 iwcessary to publish a monthly report. This was done during the summer and 

 fall of 1863, after which it was changed to bi-monthly, because returns of the 

 circulars could not be had in time for a monthly. 



Through these reports the condition and amount of the crops have been laid 

 before the country quickly, that the grower of and the trader in agricultural 

 products might base commerce on them by the law of supply and demand; and 

 their influence has everywhere been acknowledged as beneficial to both, and 

 not less so to the consumer. They have been distributed to correspondents, 

 who reply to the circulars, and to their assistants; to agricultural societies; to 

 members of Congress, and to all persons desiring them. 



With these brief references to the leading objects sought to be accomplished 

 by this division, I pass to as brief a statement of the general topics embraced 

 in the following pages. They are: 



1. A notice of the plan adopted for the collection of statistics of the annual 

 products of the farm, as compared with those in use in England and Prussia. 



2. The tables for each of the loyal States, exhibiting estimates made, in ac- 

 cordance with this plan, of the amount, acreage, price, and value of their chief 

 crops, with a summary of the amount, acreage, and value of each crop ; of the 

 amount, acreage, and value of all; their increase and decrease, and the per 

 cent, of these, for the years 1862 and 1863; also, a table of the amount ol 

 farm stock in January, 1864. 



3. Tables of the exports of the principal agi-icultural products of these 

 States, their prices at New York and in England ; the receipts and shipments 

 ot^ them at the two principal centring points — Chicago and New York — and 

 their prices at these cities. 



LEWIS BOLLMAN, Statistician. 

 The Commissioner of Agriculture. 



PART I. THE PLAN ADOPTED FOR THE ANNUAL COLLECTION OF THE YIEL.D OF 



'OHE CROPS AND THE AMOUNT OF FARM STOCK, BY THE AGRICULTURAL 

 DEPARTMENT, WITH A NOTICE OF THAT IN USE IN ENGLAND AND PRUSSIA. 



_The commerce of the world is so dependent on agricultural productions, that 

 to ascertain their annual amount has become an object of the greatest utility. 

 No less dependent on them are manufactures, and all the industry employed 

 therein. The textile material, as cotton, wool, and flax, is essential to the 

 great clothing manufactories, and the animal, cereal, and vegetable food to 

 sustain the health and strength of their operatives. A scarcity of these, or 

 their abundance, affects the exchanges of the world. In view of this absolute 

 dependence on agricultural production, the nations of the earth, especially those 

 like England, which do not supply their own wants by their own agriculture, 

 or like Prussia and the United States, which largely export agricultural products 

 to the manufacturing nations, are forming plans to ascertain the yield of their 

 annual harvests. 



