CXII REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 



isfying the needs of our own large population there was available last 

 year for export over $250,000,000 worth of its products — from being 

 reported upon as promptly and fully as are the cotton, corn, and wheat 

 crops of the country. The annual fruit crop, the egg and poultry 

 industry, beet sugar, flaxseed, and other products of great and grow- 

 ing importance also claim attention. The Department has already in 

 operation all the agencies necessary to the collection, as often as may 

 be necessary, of the required information relative to these important 

 interests, and all that remains to be done is to provide the means for 

 the employment of such additional experts and statistical compilers 

 as may be necessary to the prompt compilation and analysis of so large 

 an amount of additional statistical data. 



Negotiations with the Governments of the principal grain-producing 

 countries of Europe looking to a telegraphic interchange of crop 

 reports are far advanced, and the growing season of 1902 will see the 

 American farmer placed in as prompt possession of reliable statistics 

 concerning the principal grain crops of foreign countries as he is of 

 those of the United States. 



For several years past determined efforts have been made, with the 

 cooperation of the Public Printer, to expedite the publication and 

 distribution of the Statistician's crop reports, so that as little time as 

 possible might intervene between the issue of the telegraphic sum- 

 mary, the circulation of which is necessarily chiefly commercial, and 

 the receipt in the most remote agricultural county of the complete 

 report. On May 31, 1901, however, at a time when the keenest inter- 

 est was prevailing throughout the entire South as to the extent of the 

 newly planted acreage of cotton, a card containing the most important 

 points of the Statistician's report on the subject was mailed to 24,000 

 Southern post offices within three hours of the publication of the tele- 

 graphic summary, with a request that postmasters would give it prom- 

 inent display in their offices. This was done largely as an experiment, 

 and so successful was it that within a few weeks its operation was 

 extended with the most gratifying results to the grain reports. A 

 farmer has now only to visit the nearest post-office to see the Statisti- 

 cian's latest report on the principal crops, and the measures adopted 

 by the Public Printer and Postmaster-General have reduced to a min- 

 imum the time necessary to placing this important information within 

 the farmer's immediate reach. 



The remarkable accuracy of the Statistician's advance estimates of 

 the cotton crop in each of the last two years has excited much favora- 

 ble comment both in the United States and abroad, and his work in 

 general is commended to Congress as worthy of largely increased pro- 

 vision for its further extension and improvement. This Division is 

 growing in usefulness and in the estimation of the people. It is out- 

 growing its present environment and it will be wise in the near future 

 to give it bureau enlargement. 



