REPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN. 



SiK. : I have the honor to present my twelfth annual report as Statisti- 

 cian of the Department of Agriculture. The period covered by the 

 work of this division has been emphatically an era of statistical progress. 

 The advance of the world in industrial invention and social science has 

 demanded increased activity in statistical investigation, and greater 

 accuracy and breadth in statistical statement. The progress of nations 

 in beneficent legislation and good government has been found dependent 

 upon the work of the statistician. The profit of the tradesman and the 

 thrift of the farmer are greatly affected by the accuracy of the informa- 

 tion upon which the business operations of each are based. 



The intelligent farmer is beginning to learn that misrepresentation of 

 crop prospects, in the interest of higher prices, meets with but temporary 

 and partial success, followed by revulsion and disaster. As water finds 

 its level, so prices naturally tend to the equilibrium found under the 

 law of supply and demand, which acts as inevitably as the law of gravi- 

 tation. If a high price is obtained for a time, under a false impression 

 of scarcity, the producer inevitably pays the penalty in prices running 

 to the other extreme, whenever a surplus is accumulated in the hands 

 of the purchaser for consumption. The buyer, with better means of in- 

 formation and a longer purse, ofteuer defrauds the isolated and needy 

 producer of a portion of the legitimate results of his labor. The truth in 

 its plainest garb subserves best tho true interests of consumer and pro- 

 ducer, though not the pecuniary advantage of the sharks who would 

 thrive by the plunder of honest labor, making more in an hour than the 

 producer receives for a year's work and investment. 



It is conceded that the Government has an interest and a stake in the 

 enlightenment of laborers, agricultural and mechanical, the makers of 

 the wealth and conservers of the prosperity of the country, for their 

 guidance in production in kind and quantity required and for their pro- 

 tection against the pirates of trade. The revenues of the Government, 

 as at present secured, depend upon the ability of the masses to consume 

 the products of native and foreign industry 5 and the prosperity of the 

 nation is involved in the welfare of the industrial classes. Even mon- 

 archical governments see the necessity of aiding industry by technical, 

 agricultural, and industrial education; by commissions for scientific and 

 statistical investigation ; in brief, by doing for the producers collectively 

 what they have no means or sufficient inducement for doing individually, 

 or even by organized association. Millions annually are spent for such 

 purposes by France, Austria, Italy, and other European governments. 

 Eeports of investigation bearing on the interests of labor are multiplied 

 annually, greatly to the advancement of industry and human happiness. 



Eecently the subject of international statistics has attracted much 

 attention abroad and among progressive minds in this country. Sev- 

 eral sessions of the International Statistical Congress have been held 

 with good results, though a far greater work yet remains to be accom- 

 plished. It is of the utmost importance to this Government that a sys- 



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