EEPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN. 



REPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN. 



Sir: I submit herewith my eighth aunual report as Statisticiau of the 

 Department of Agriculture. The statistical field to he explored extends 

 through the length and breadth of this country, in all its varied and 

 constantly widening range of rural industries; and frequent incursions 

 into foreign fields are necessary for the introduction of new ideas in 

 l^roduction and its processes, and for a knowledge of deficiencies in for- 

 eign production and their supi)ly from our own surplus, so far as it can 

 be accomplished with profit to ourselves. With our increasing popula- 

 tion, an increasing proportion of those engaged in agriculture,* and, by 

 reason of mechanical aids, a larger result for the manual labor emj)loyed, 

 production of certain crops so much exceeds the demand as to render 

 unprofitable, in years of abundance, the labor and capital employed. 

 It is not strange, therefore, that the States essentially agricultural in 

 their industry should appreciate the necessity of seeking new channels 

 of eifort, modifications and extensions of the primitive and crude in 

 agricultural labor, yielding products of higher value in proportion to 

 weight, and better able to bear comi)etition with incoming commodities, 

 while molding surplus production to a form defying the ordinary exac- 

 tions of transportation monopoly. It is important to know, early and 

 accurately, the facts of foreign harvests, that any extraordinary defi- 

 ciency in breadstulfs may be supplied from our abundance, not only as a 

 means of profit, but from considerations of humanity and international 

 comity; but the business of exporting the raw products of agriculture, 

 as a permanent reliance, has neither the sanction of sound national 

 economy nor the slightest consistency with agricultural progress. It is 

 the province of statistics to present facts, from home and foreign sources, 

 to show the relations of suijply and demand and the cost and profit of 

 various branches of production, and to enable the agiicultural commu- 

 nity to equalize the rewards of their labor, and to lessen such burdens 

 as come from unnecessary transportation and undesirable importation. 



THE CEOP OF 1872. 



Corn. — A late, cold spring, and unfavorable weather during the plant- 

 ing season, interfered with the seeding and growth of corn throughout 

 the Western States, and in many iiortious of the North, and probably 



* It is possible that the census of 1870 lias been more thorough ami systematic than 

 the earlier enumeratious, in the return of minor rural occupations, and the "agricul- 

 tural laborers" of Southern States have been recruited from the ranks of slave labor- 

 ers. The follo-wiug statement is from census records: 



leco. 



AgTicnltnral laborers 2, 8Sj, 99C 



Apiarists 130 



Dairymen and dairy women 3, 550 



Farm and plantation owners 3, GOD 



Farmers and planters 2, 977, 711 



Florists 1, OW 



Gardeners and nurserymen 31,435 



Stock-drovers 3, 181 



Stock-herders 5, 590 



Stock-raisers C, 533 



Tnrpeutine-farmers 3G1 



Turpentine-laborers 2, 117 



Vine-growers 1, 112 



5, 977, 471 



Apiarists 59 



Dairymen 1, 952 



Dro\'ers 2, 477 



Farmers 2, 423, 895 



Farm-laborers 795, 679 



Florists 458 



Gai'deners and nurserj-men 21, 323 



Herdsmen 6, 359 



Shepherds 1, 153 



Turpentiuc-makers 1, 353 



Vine-dressers 116 



Vine-ffrowers 5 



3, 254, 829 



