DIVISION OF STATISTICS. 343 



FOREIGN CROP INTELLIGENCE. 



The importance to the American farmer and to the country in gen- 

 eral of trustworthy information concerning the crops of competing 

 countries, and especially that of wheat, needs no demonstration. 

 Regulate the extent of the wheat acreage in the United States as we 

 will, improve the facilities for the transportation of the grain as Ave 

 may, the price of this product must inevitably continue to depend 

 largely on the production of other countries, the contribution of the 

 United States to the wheat production of the world having rarely 

 reached and but once exceeded 25 per cent of the whole. 



While the cultivation of friendly relations Avith the statistical 

 offices of foreign GoA r ernments has secured for the Department during 

 the last tAvo years facilities for reporting upon foreign crops superior 

 to those in its possession at any preAdous period in its history, the 

 need has been felt of a still more prompt transmittal to this office of 

 authoritative information relative to the condition and prospects of 

 such crops as enter into competition with those of the United States 

 in the Avorld's markets. 



Negotiations with the GoA'ernments of A T arious important grain- 

 producing countries of Europe, and also with that of the Dominion 

 of Canada, looking to a telegraphic interchange of crop reports simi- 

 lar to that already in operation between the United States and Hun- 

 gary, Avere entered upon during the closing days of the fiscal year 

 covered by this report, and it is not an improper anticipation of the 

 Statistician's report for the year 1901-1902 to state that those negotia- 

 tions haA^e now reached a stage at which it can be stated with almost 

 absolute certainty that the groAving season of 1902 Avill see the Amer- 

 ican farmer placed in as prompt possession of reliable statistics con- 

 cerning the principal grain crops of foreign countries as he is of those 

 of the United States. 



DEMAND FOR ENLARGEMENT OF SCOPE OF WORK. 



There is an urgent demand from many different directions for a 

 substantial broadening of the scope of the Avork of this DiA T ision. 

 Only the insufficiency of the appropriation preA r ents the liA'e stock 

 and liA^e-stock products of the country — an interest so enormous that 

 after satisfying the needs of our OAvn 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 growing importance also claim attention. The Department 

 has already in operation all the agencies necessaiy to the collection, 

 as often as may be necessary, of the required information relati\ T e to 

 these important interests, and all that remains to be done is to pro- 

 vide the means for the employment of such additional experts and 

 statistical compilers as may be necessaiy to the prompt compilation 

 and analysis of so large an amount of additional statistical data. 



NEED OF A BUREAU ORGANIZATION. 



Attention is once more invited to the fact that the statistical work of 

 the Department has far outgrown that divisional organization which 

 was formerly entirely adequate to its requirements, but is now greatly 



