762 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



perfect or incomplete. This is the case with all agricultural sta- 

 tistics, and especially so with the returns of crops, always an estimate 

 of uncertain foundation. No two fields of grain are exactly the 

 same, and the variation of field to field is exaggerated when it is made 

 the basis for an estimate of the condition or yield of crops in a town- 

 ship, a community, or a State. The observers are different, and 

 each observer would look at the same field through the medium of a 

 personal equation. 'No general rules can be laid down for prepar- 

 ing these estimates, and much latitude must be given to the agent. 

 In our own crop service, as conducted by the Department of Agri- 

 culture, the estimates of crop condition are based upon reports from 

 56,700 regular correspondents, reporting monthly, and 140,500 

 special correspondents, reporting at particular seasons of the year. 

 Even the Secretary of Agriculture is not satisfied with this machin- 

 ery. " I am much impressed," he writes in his report for 1897, 

 " with the extreme cumbrousness of the system of crop reporting that 

 has been in use in this division " (of statistics) " during the last few 

 years. Instead of conducing to completeness and accuracy, it would 

 appear from the report of the statistician to in some measure defeat 

 its own object by its unwieldiness, and by the fact that the indefinite 

 multiplication of crop reporters weakens the sense of individual re- 

 sponsibility." The defects of the system have been recognized by 

 others, who are obliged to be informed on the crop conditions, and 

 who have been compelled to look elsewhere than to the Department 

 of Agriculture for crop returns and estimates. The " commercial 

 estimates " prepared by experts, and checked by actual receipts or 

 movement of grain, find a more ready acceptance than do the 

 " official " estimates. In the last season the commercial estimate 

 placed the crop of wheat at 550,000,000 bushels, while the depart- 

 ment forecast a yield of only 450,000,000 bushels, a difference too 

 large to be admissible in a statistical examination of the same sub- 

 ject. The reporters for the department, practical farmers as most of 

 them were, did not wish to report a heavy crop, lest the market be 

 influenced and prices fall. A short crop appeals more to their in- 

 terest, and their estimate inclines, consciously or unconsciously, to 

 an understatement of conditions. " The best authorities are now 

 agreed that in 1891 the bureau (of agriculture) underestimated the 

 American wheat crop by 73,000,000 bushels, in 1892 by 64,000,000 

 bushels, and in 1893 by 79,000,000 bushels." * " In 1894 the Gov- 

 ernment estimate in December of the wheat crop was 460,000,000 

 bushels, while the best commercial estimates of that year were 

 525,000,000 bushels." f 



* New York Evening Post, August 11, 1897. \ Ibid., August 16, 1897. 



