48 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



cal suggestion. This report is becoming very popular, being 

 used extensively among owners of roadside markets and others 

 interested in the selling of farm products, as well as retailers 

 and consumers living in and around Boston. Postage for this 

 report is required of all who receive it. 



The most outstanding progress made in a national way in the 

 dissemination of market news was the installation of a radio 

 market news service by the Bureau of Markets and Crop 

 Estimates. Market news relating to live stock and grain is 

 now sent out each day from radio stations at such points as 

 Washington, District of Columbia, Belief ont, Pennsylvania, 

 St. Louis, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska. It is expected 

 that this system of reporting news will extend into the field 

 of hay, feed, seeds, fruits and vegetables, and it is not un- 

 reasonable to suppose that the time is not far distant when our 

 State may be in a position to utilize this information for the 

 benefit of our people. 



Through our mailing lists and press contacts we were able 

 during the past year to give wide publicity to the reports issued 

 by the crop statistician of the United States Bureau of Markets 

 and Crop Estimates, who is co-operatively employed by our 

 Commonwealth. These reports comprise crop acreage, pro- 

 duction, condition and special reports on such matters as insect 

 injury, frost damage and ice breakage. 



Our farmers, more especially those engaged in intensive 

 market gardening, have expressed a desire for accurate in- 

 formation covering the acreage of production and time of har- 

 vesting of competing crops in competing areas, together with 

 periodical progress reports on these crops. This information 

 apparently would be very valuable to our local men, whose 

 early market is encroached on by the southern competitor. In 

 a like manner a census of farm products in Massachusetts 

 alone giving the acreage of each crop, especially in the market- 

 garden and fruit areas, Avould be of assistance to our men in 

 eliminating some of the present risk in marketing. Work along 

 this line has already begun with figures for onion acreage re- 

 cently issued. 



Market reports describing a set of facts so far in the past 

 as to have no bearing on the present market conditions are 



