32 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



Owing to this restriction, the number of meteorological registers 

 received during the past year has been diminished, and the transmis- 

 sion of nearly all of them would have been discontinued had not 

 the Commissioner of Agriculture, in view of their value to his 

 department, decided to advance to some of the observers the neces- 

 sary postage stamps to affix to their registers. He would willingly 

 have sent stamps to all, but the tax would have been too heavy for 

 the office ; he therefore found it necessary to limit the number, 

 and in doing so endeavored to make such a selection as would secure 

 registers from districts distributed as uniformly as possible in all the 

 States. Those observers, therefore, who have not been supplied 

 with stamps should infer from this no disparagement of their observa- 

 tions, for among those who have been omitted from the list are 

 some whose registers are highly prized for their regularity and 

 accuracy. 



Before it was known that this arrangement would be made by the 

 Commissioner a circular was sent from this Institution to all the ob- 

 servers, mentioning the new feature in the postage law, and requesting 

 them to continue their observations, and retain the records until the 

 law should be modified, or some arrangement could be made by which 

 the observers would not be subject to the burden of postage.* 



Under the new r organization of the Department of Agriculture a 

 renewed interest has been manifested by the Commissioner in the 

 collection of meteorological statistics, and he has expressed the desire 

 to co-operate with this Institution in continuing and extending the 

 system of records of the weather which it had established with so 

 much labor and expense. 



In order to obtain and diffuse a knowledge of facts of immediate 

 importance to agriculturists, the Commissioner has commenced the 

 publication of a monthly bulletin giving the state of the crops, the 

 condition of the weather, and various other items of importance which 

 are daily received from observers, and which would lose a considerable 

 portion of their value were they suffered to remain unpublished until 

 the end of the year. For this bulletin the Institution supplies the 

 meteorological materials, consisting of the mean, maximum, and 

 minimum temperature and amount of rain for each month in different 

 States, and also, for the purpose of comparison, the mean temperature 

 and amount of rain for a series of five years, grouped by States ; 



* This law has been changed since the above was written, and observers can send their 

 meteorological registers, or other communications, to the "Commissioner of Agriculture," with- 

 out prepayment of 'postage. 



