HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 439 
of soils in the different States in the Union. I think we were in 34 
States last year. They are pushing matters with a good deal of 
vigor, and certainly to the satisfaction of the people in that Bureau. 
The tobacco work of that department I have said something about 
incidentally. It is succeeding. 
_I spent a while in Tennessee, myself, looking into the tobacco con- 
ditions there, other than Sumatra and Habana tobacco, and I found the 
people needed help down in that country with those tobaccos, and we 
are beginning object lessons to help people out along those lines. 
They have been reducing the fertility of the soil by improper methods 
of cultivation, and are not getting as:good tobacco or as good yields 
of itas they did in an earlier day. And we are going to help them 
out of that difficulty. 
In regard to statistics. You have heard a great deal about leaks in 
our statistical work—charges made by people who probably may have 
happened to be on the wrong side of the market. I am going to do 
this next spring when we begin—in the course of two or three months 
we will begin our monthly reports again—I shall invite the chairman 
to appoint a committee to come down and look at our work; see how 
it is done, and know all about it. 
A hundred thousand dollars to-day, wisely and judiciously expended, 
will procure for a private firm accurate information with regard to 
every crop in America—pretty accurate information—but the private 
person does not publish that. He keeps that to himself; he paid his 
money for it and it is his. 
Mr. Burieson. He probably publishes some other information in. 
order that he may profit by it. 
Secretary Witson. Surely. My idea in regard to the intention of 
Congress is that we shall get an accurate condition of each crop and 
tell everybody at the same hour. Take cotton, for illustration. In 
the last two or three years we have come very close to it. How we 
shall come out next year I do not know, but I am tolerably well satis- 
fied we have not put it far out of the way. And it will be a satisfac- 
tion to us if a subcommittee of this committee would know exactly how 
- we do our work, and we would be ready for any suggestions you might 
make. We think it is about an impossibility for any leaking to take 
place at the present time. 
Mr. Burteson. As a matter of fact, have you not invited these 
gentlemen in the cities to point out if there were any defects? 
Secretary Wixson. I went further than that. I told men of the 
Cotton Exchange in New York to send a particular man and I would 
appoint him in that very Bureau and let him learn the whole business. 
They sent us a man, and I appointed him; but he had not the capacity 
to comprehend it. It is no small matter. This is the most carefully 
thought out statistical work that is done anywhere. There are 250,000 
people reporting to us—a large volume of intelligent gentlemen that 
get no pay and feel proud of the fact that they work for the Govern- 
men without pay; and I would not have them paid, for fear they would 
have competition for the small pittance we might give them, from fel- 
lows that would want to be on that job for the money there was in it. 
Mr. Haucen. It was stated by your statistician that the reports 
sent in by your local men were not altogether reliable. 
Mr. Bowie. I think the gentleman misunderstood him. 
Secretary Wixson. He might have said something to the effect that 
