368 



International Statistical Institute. 



Major Craigie submitted also a series of tables showing for 

 what countries an annual record was published of the acreage 

 of cereal crops and of the number of live stock, indicating the 

 numerous instances in which as yet no complete statement 

 year by year was available. He showed that on a thirty 

 years' survey a complete or nearly complete series of annual 

 records of the areas of wheat are furnished in only five 

 countries out of twenty — viz., the United Kingdom, her 

 Australian group of Colonies, France, Holland, and the 

 United States of America, from official sources. Next in 

 degree of continuity of record are the annual figures from 

 Austria and from Hungary. From 1878 the German Empire 

 has supplied continuous annual reports, and similar serial 

 data have been more lately begun in some provinces of 

 Canada, in India, Roumania, Sweden, Italy, and Russia. 

 Recent reports from Algeria, and even from Japan, suggested 

 that the example of an annual record of areas may be in 

 future hoped for from regions less statistically familiar. 

 Elsewhere, and in some of the countries named, before 

 the beginning of consecutive statistics, the areas on which 

 wheat was grown were apparently ascertained only by 

 inquiries made at more or less distant intervals. Thus, for 

 Belgium we have no later data than those of 1 880. Continuous 

 annual statistics of the number of live stock were, it was also 

 pointed out by means of the tables submitted, available only 

 in a few countries. 



The practice of Great Britain and her Australian Colonies 

 as to annual returns was in accord with that of France, Holland, 

 and Sweden in Europe, and with the United States of America 

 only, and the wide gaps in such important live stock owning 

 countries as Russia, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Hungary 

 indicated the danger to the statistician who may be making 

 an estimate of the total herds or flocks of the world at any 

 given date, from the absence of annual particulars. 



Apart from the lesson these tables teach as to the value 

 of a strictly consecutive series of international statistics, 

 the agricultural changes of recent years were indicated in 

 definite form by the figures supplied by !Major Craigie. 

 These suggested an apparent stationary condition of wheat 



