440 HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 
we have seven or eight sources of getting cotton reports. If you go 
to one class of men they may lean a little one way from what a dif- 
ferent class of men would lean. We get reports from those classes 
year after year, and when we come to make up our estimate for a 
given year we look over all the reports of all those people and find 
where the conservative estimates come from and where the sanguine 
estimates come from, and give weight accordingly. 
Mr. Haveen. I would state to Mr. Bowie that this did not have. 
reference to the reports on cotton; it had reference to the wheat crop 
in Kansas, or some other western State. He said the local reporters 
had not discovered the fact that the plantings had been changed from 
spring to fall wheat. 
Mr. Burixson. With reference to the acreage. 
Mr. Bowrs. I misunderstand your remark to the Secretary; but 
what I really understood the gentleman to state was that there was a 
remarkable degree of accuracy, but that oftentimes the information 
that was given out periodically by these regular reporters was not 
always accurate because of changed conditions by reason of a severe 
drought or a severe frost, or something of that sort, rendering it 
necessary to get special reports; that these special reports, of course, 
sometimes on account of those conditions, make it necessary to modify 
the others. But he testified to the remarkable accuracy in the main 
of the reports. 
Secretary Wixson. Yes; but as I stated, if you go to a certain class 
of people you will get a more conservative report on any given crop 
than you will from some other class; but if you have this every year 
you will by and by find which bridge carried you over. Next May 
we will know all about the movement, and know what the commercial 
crop was, and by looking back through several sources of information 
find out which was—— 
Mr. Bowrn. Which was sanguine? 
Secretary WiLson. Precisely. Any of you gentlemen are welcome 
to come down on the day we get our reports out, and we will let you 
in and lock the door and you will see every step that is taken until it 
is finished and then we will let you out. 
A word with regard to irrigation. A movement has been taken by 
Congress in regard to damming up the waters in the uplands for the 
purpose of using it where there is not enough of rainfall. Isentaman 
to Europe last summer to look over the irrigation systems where they 
have rainfall, and pretty heavy rainfall. The people of Italy dam u 
their mountain streams and hold the water until dry times come aid 
then use the water; and by that means they have maximum crops 
every year. The use of water is a question that is new; irrigation is 
not new. People in bygone centuries used it extensively; but there 
is nothing on record to show us they understood the effect of a given 
amount of water ona given crop. We have found, as far as we have 
gone, they use far too much water for the benefit of the crop, and we 
propose to study the use of water, and its use with regard to the several 
crops. 
You want a crop of oats, for example, and 500 pounds of water 
must go through the plant, if I remember correctly, to produce 1 
pound of dry matter. If you pnt in 1,000 pounds of water you are 
wasting half of it. If you want a crop of mltent. less will do. Much 
depends on the soil. We will study the soil also of those countries. 
