REPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN. 



Sir : 1 have the honor to submit the twenty-first report of the opera- 

 tions of the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture, it 

 being my sixteenth annual report as Statistician. 



The collection of statistics is made an important part of Department 

 work by the organic act of 1862, but the organization for statistical 

 work did not occur till 1863, when an appropriation was made for the 

 salary of a Statistician, and $20,000 appropriated for the expenses of 

 collection and compilation. 



The duties of the Statistician are, the collection of the current facts 

 of American agriculture and the compilation of such foreign statistics 

 as may seem, by comparison and suggestion, to advance the interests 

 of rural economy in this country. The facts of production, of distribu- 

 tion, of experiment, of values, wherever recorded, official or otherwise, 

 foreign or domestic, are laid under contribution, are co-ordinated and 

 marshaled for such natural and logical deductions as may aid in ad- 

 vancing the progress of scientific and productive agriculture. The 

 official statistics of boards of trade, of industrial associations, of rail- 

 roads, and all other available data are used. 



The crop reporting system involves an organization of a corps of cor- 

 respondents, one chief observer in each county, with three assistants 

 in different parts of the county. They are charged with reporting, upon 

 blanks furnished, the status of crops on the first day of each month, 

 showing, as the season progresses, the comparative area planted, condi- 

 tion of growing crops, the average yield per acre, and the comparative 

 product at the end of the season, with the average farm prices in De- 

 cember, upon which are based the values of the several crops. These 

 reporters are selected for their known intelligence and judgment, and 

 the aid of agricultural societies, or, in their absence, of the representa- 

 tive in Congress, is invoked in their selection, if suitable persons are 

 not known to the officers of the Department. They are selected with 

 reference to fitness, and their political views are usually unknown. Their 

 duties are performed gratuitously, in a spirit of self-sacrifice for the 

 public; good, and with an ardent desire to co-operate with the Depart- 

 ment for general as well as local progress in agriculture. They are un- 

 doubtedly more efficient than a force of mere stipendiaries, and are en- 

 titled to grateful recognition of their valuable services. It is a subject, 

 of regret that the Department has been unable to supply its statistical 

 eorps promptly with the annual reports which they help to make and 

 on which many of their comparisons are based. 



In 1882, in the development of this system, a further test of accuracy 

 was provided. State statistical agents were appointed, one for each 

 State and Territory. They were paid a salary, small, but proportioned 

 to the work demanded, and they were required to organize investiga- 

 tions parallel with those of the original corps reporting to the Depart- 

 ment. As far as possible the heads of the State statistical system were 



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