AN INTERNATIONAL CROP REPORTING 

 SERVICE 



HARVEY J. SCONCE, United States Delegate to the International Institute 

 of Agriculture at Rome, Sidell 



HEN the American delegation, consisting of three delegates, 

 attended the International Institute of Agriculture at 

 Rome in November, 1920, they decided that the para- 

 mount issue of this nation was a better crop-reporting 

 service for the world, and their united efforts were 

 extended in this direction. 

 At the meeting of the General Assembly, America was honored 

 and our crop-reporting service was duly recognized as the best of the 

 entire world, to the extent that Mr. L. M. Estebrook, one of the dele- 

 gates and Chief of the Bureau of Crop Estimates of the Department 

 of Agriculture at Washington, was chosen chairman of the Second 

 Commission which had to do with crop estimates and statistics. 



THE NEED OF ACCURATE, COMPLETE, AND TIMELY STATISTICS 



I was also placed on this commission with Mr. Estebrook; and 

 in an address to the General Assembly I tried to bring before the 

 delegates of the fifty-six nations represented, the attitude of America 

 relative to a world crop-reporting service, and to show how essential 

 it was that each country should have a reliable system of statistics 

 that would be accurate and timely. I outlined the present condition 

 to them, showing that only a few countries had any system that was 

 dependable, while other nations had little or no service whatever; 

 also that some of the countries who were attempting to report crop 

 statistics did so at such a late date that the information was worthless 

 so far as the markets of the world were concerned. I attempted to 

 show further that the systems of different countries varied in detail 

 so much that by the time the reports were received, the information 

 translated, and the figures of the foreign nation converted into the 

 units of our nation, so much time had elapsed that the resulting 

 information was without value. I urged that a standard system be 

 adopted, and that this service should embrace a complete agricultural 

 census: statistics and estimates of acreage; yields per acre and total 

 production of all crops grown; numbers of different classes, sexes, 

 ages, and breeds of all live stock; crop and live-stock forecasting; 

 farm and market prices; crop, live-stock and land values; popula- 



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