254 REPORT OF THE COMillSSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



INTERXATIOXAL STATISTICS. 



The International Statistical Congress at St. Petersburg in 1872 con- 

 fided to the French goveiiament statistical corps the preparation of a 

 code of international statistics of agriculture. The work was immedi- 

 ately inaugurated by sending direct inquiries to the statistical authorities 

 of Europe and America. Replies to these inquiries, embodying more or 

 less full statistics of 1873, were received from the United Kingdom, 

 Norway, Hungary, Saxony, Wilrtemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, 

 Saxe- Weimar, Saxe-Altenburg, Holland, and Belgium. The French 

 government gave authoritative and efficient aid to the work, whereby 

 a very thorough census of the agricultural resources of the republic was 

 secured. Returns embracing statistics of an earlier date were received 

 from several other countries, while of still others ouly published docu- 

 ments of several years' standing were accessible. The dates of these 

 data will be found in one of the tables given below. Statistics of the 

 United States were received from the Statistical Division of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. 



As was expected, great embarrassment was found in the differences of 

 national manners, customs, and methods of investigation. The pressure 

 of difficulties arising from these sources caused the inquiries to be con- 

 fined to four leading and essential points, upon which alone it was 

 deemed practicable to attain results of even approximate value and 

 reliability. These poiuts are, first, acreage, both cultivated and unculti- 

 vated ; second, product compared with area ; third, farm-animals ; fourth, 

 systems of exploitation, processes ox culture, and agricultural implements. 

 The following abstract embraces the first three of these heads : 



The original report is in French, rendering necessary not only trans- 

 lation and subsequent condensation and re-arrangement, but also a re- 

 duction from French weights and measures to our own. If an interna- 

 tional system of weights and measures — the metric, if no other should 

 be deemed practicable or preferable — could be established, it would re- 

 lieve much of the tribulation of statisticians in work upon international 

 statistics. 



Area. — The following table shows the date of the official returns or 

 other information from which the statistics were compiled, the popula- 

 tion and national areas of the different states, and the proportion of 

 l)roductive and unproductive laud. 



