594 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE, 
ARTICLE XVI. 
The present statutes will be revised by the assembly only upon the written request 
of twenty-five members. That request should be addressed to the president, with 
motions in support of it, at least three months before the opening of the session. 
It is quite impracticable to give in the present report more than a 
mention of the work of the institute during the session. The morn- 
ing hours were devoted to the sessions of the several committees, the 
principal of which related to lands, prices, census enumerations, 
labor, commerce, and the bibliography of statistics. 
In the committee on prices one session was devoted to the consid- 
eration of the best means of procuring and presenting records of 
mean prices of the products of agriculture, industry, and transporta- 
tion, to serve as a base to measure the variations of price at different 
periods and the divergency of price in different countries. 
The committee on landed property canvassed the best means of pre- 
paring comparative statements relative to the division of lands and 
upon the extent of agricultural holdings in different countries, show- 
ing the status of cultivators, whether proprietors, tenant farmers, or 
share-renters. In this committee a memorandum was submitted by 
Maj. P. G. Craigie, of England, which illustrated the wide variation 
in forms and methods of inquiry, the divergence of definitions in such 
terms as ‘“‘agricultural holding” and ‘‘cultivated land,” the errors 
arising from resulting figures not strictly comparable, the confusing 
variety of grouping of returns of holdings, the failure of census rec- 
ords to show the number of land owners, and the failure to show 
with precision the number of separate properties. Belgium, for ex- 
ample, enumerates the smallest areas, neta those of not less than 
a fourth of an acre, the United States three acres, Hungary five, ete. 
After discussion, in which the members of different countries pre- 
sented the local usage and personal view of the difficulties to be sur- 
mounted, M. de Foville, of France, showed the practicability of at- 
tempting some agreement on the more important points presented, 
and a permanent international committee was organized. to collect 
the precise facts of existing records and formulate a practicable plan 
of unification of statements for international comparison. 
The committee on labor gave an entire morning to the considera- 
tion of means of procuring comparative data of the statistics of labor 
of different countries. Statements were made concerning researches 
and investigations in those directions in France, Italy, the United 
States, and other countries. Suggestions were made by several heads 
of statistical bureaus, and a committee was organized for more 
thorough investigation ad interim. 
The census committee held a long session in consideration of the 
differences existing in publications relative to census enumerations, 
and the means of rendering their facts more readily comparable. 
Another committee devoted considerable time to discussion as to the 
possibility and the means of rendering more comparable the results 
of official statistics of foreign commerce of different nations. Still 
another investigated the means of preparing for each country a cata- 
logue of publications, official and other, containing exact statements 
for each of the principal branches of statistics. These hints of the 
work of committees suggest some of the difficulties to be overborne, 
and afford a glimpse of the wide field of future work ad interim and 
at biennial sessions. 
