8 International Agricultural Institute. 



kept in view, and the selection of the staff by the Permanent 

 Committee. 



The objects are clearly indicated by a happy phrase of the 

 Rome Convention, which says that the Institute shall "collect, 

 elaborate, and publish, with as little delay as possible, 

 statistical, technical, and economic information relating to 

 the cultivation of the soil and to agricultural products." 



The division of the work into three as foreshadowed in 

 this article corresponds perfectly to scientific theory. One 

 of the objects of our Institute is to enlighten the agricultural 

 world upon the statistics of production, upon the commerce 

 and prices of the principal products, so that agriculturists 

 shall not become the prey of unwarrantable speculation. This 

 is not its only object, however ; if it were, it would have been 

 sufficient to establish an International Bureau of Agricultural 

 Statistics in place of this great International Institute of 

 Agriculture. Proceeding on this basis, therefore, we have 

 established, in addition to a Bulletin of Statistics, a Bulletin 

 of Agricultural Intelligence and of Plant Diseases and a 

 Bulletin of Economic and Social Intelligence. 



Bureau of Agricultural Intelligence and Plant 

 Diseases. 



The Permanent Committee has insisted that the Bulletin 

 of this Bureau should concern itself only with matters which 

 are absolutely new, important, and indicative of progress. 

 In accordance with this principle, it has not sanctioned a 

 proposal to issue a technical bulletin arranged according to 

 countries, although it appreciated the advantages which such 

 an arrangement would have offered. During the holidays, 

 the Bureau of Agricultural Intelligence and Plant Diseases 

 had prepared a publication dealing with the United Kingdom, 

 the first of a series which, issued at short intervals, would 

 have dealt successively with all countries. The Permanent 

 Committee considered that to deal with all the countries of 

 the world would have occupied several years, and that this 

 species of encyclopaedia on a geographical basis would not 

 then have been in conformity with the objects of the Institute, 

 which are to supplv information without delav to the agri- 



