DIVISION OF STATISTICS.

This division was established in 1863, in the year following that of the organization of the Department, by the creation of the office of statistician and the appropriation of $20,000 for the purposes of statistical investigation and compilation. The position was filled by the appointment of a statistician, who was charged with the collection of cropreports and current general statistics, and with the editing of the monthly report, a publication designed to include the gist of current crop-returns and such other data as required prompt publicity.

In 1866 the annual report was transferred to this division, and its editor was appointed statistician, and has since discharged the increased duties of this consolidation, establishing the division of statistics and publication, which now combines with the crop-reporting system and general investigation the revision and issue of the reports and publications.

The agricultural report of the Patent Office, which was published a few years prior to 1847 in connection with the annual mechanical report, became at that date a separate publication, which was continued as an annual until the organization of the Department of Agriculture, the last issued being that of 1861, under the auspices of the agricultural division of the Patent Office. The annual edition had been increased from a few thousand to 200,000. The new (or Department) series has had still larger issues, varying from 200,000 to 275,000 copies per annum, until the repeal of the franking privilege interfered with their distribution. The recent reports have not been published promptly on account of the differing views of the Senate and House relative to their distribution, the House usually voting to order 200,000 to 300,000 copies for free delivery, and the Senate desiring to limit franking, and inclining to the English plan of sale at cost of printing; but in August of the present year provision was made for the publication of 200,000 copies of 1875 and 100,000 copies of 1874.

It is susceptible of abundant proof that these volumes have greatly stimulated agricultural thought, encouraged the adoption of advanced processes, and excited a taste for agricultural reading, especially in new and poor settlements, in which they have proved a pioneer in all that pertains to agricultural progress. They have even gone in advance of the issues of the agricultural press, and created a demand for rural liter

ature. They are more sought, according to the constant testimony of Congressmen, than any other public document, and are carefully hus banded and distributed by members with farming constituencies, while members representing cities now very generally make exchanges further to accommodate the constituents of the rural districts.

The function of the division of statistics is the collection of the.current facts of agriculture in the United States and the compilation of such foreign statistics as may serve, by comparison and suggestion, to advance the interests of rural economy in this country. It involves an organization of a corps of reporters, consisting of a chief and three assistants in each county, charged with the duty of responding monthly to systematic inquiries concerning the condition of the growing crops, the area planted, rate of ultimate yield, the prevailing home prices of products, the condition and comparative numbers of farm animals, and other points of general interest. Circulars upon special subjects of local importance are occasionally sent; and special information from individual reporters is often sought, generally with prompt and satisfactory results.

These reporters are selected for their known intelligence and judg ment, and the aid of agricultural societies, or, in their absence, of the Representative 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 selfsacrifice for the public good, and with an ardent desire to co-operate with the Department for general as well as local progress in agriculture. They are undoubtedly more efficient than a force of mere stipendiaries, and are entitled to grateful recognition of their valuable services. It is a subject of regret that the Department has been unable to supply its statistical corps promptly with the annual reports which they help to make and on which many of their comparisons are based.

The translation and utilization of foreign statistical matter, and the preparation of original statistics for foreign exchange, are important features of the regular work of this division. The official statistics of States, of boards of trade, of railroads, of industrial associations, and all attainable data tending to illustrate production, distribution, and manufacture, are made available, so far as clerical facilities permit.

The furnishing of statistical statements for committees and members of Congress, boards of trade, and agricultural editors and authors, increases materially the work of the division. Added to these duties, the investigations required for original and practical papers for the monthly, annual, and special reports, the revision of matter prepared for publication, the preparation of illustrations, &c., demand service for which a singularly meager appropriation is quite inadequate, though other divisions of the Department are laid under contribution for such clerical aid as can properly be spared. The smallest State appropriation in aid

of agricultural investigation is rarely less than the largest provision made for agricultural statistics of this Department for thirty-eight States and ten Territories. That results of comparative importance are obtained can be only due to the remarkable facilities of the Department in its control of an intelligent and faithful body of statistical reporters, whose combined service, freely rendered, is tenfold greater than the clerical and other service paid from appropriations.

More than nine-tenths of all this service is gratuitous. None of the ordinary work of the correspondent, who is often a farmer with a national reputation as a rural economist and man of broad views and general culture, is paid for; the work of the editor of the annual has been entirely unremunerated for ten years, and much of the matter for the several reports is furnished without cost. From $150,000 to $200,000 per annum is thus made a gratuity to the Government by ruralists of public spirit, who wish to advance the interests of producers and consumers, and save both classes from the jaws of the sharks that thrive on false statements concerning crop-production.

CENTENNIAL EXHIBITS.

The line of exposition adopted to illustrate the work of this division, at the International Centennial Exhibition, aims to present in compact form and logical arrangement, with such aids to interpretation as are offered by color and mathematical delineation, some of the main facts. which illustrate the progress of settlement, production, and rural improvement in the United States. With a national census giving only the estimated production of the principal crops once in ten years, and very few of the States making any attempt in the direction of agricultural statistics, the field of prompt and general agricultural inquiry is left almost entirely to the statistical division of the Department of Agriculture. The rapid extension of cultivation in Western States and Territories and in the Pacific and Southwestern States, which causes changes in a single year that appear almost incredible, as for instance the increase of corn production in Kansas from 16,000,000 of bushels in 1874 to 80,000,000 in 1875, renders the work of this division exceedingly active and difficult. To gather the immense array of fragmentary data, and present for the Centennial a rounded and complete result in as many essential points as possible, much special statistical work was necessary, which has been reduced to a minimum by the extremely limited appropriation available for the service. The line of effort adopted includes, first, a series of large outline maps, illustrating the geographical distribution of crops and various results of original investigation; a series of charts and diagrams showing the important facts in production and distribution, industrial education and political economy; statistical record of the several great classes of agricultural facts, in plain text and with map, diagram and pictorial illustrations, designed to present briefly more succinct summary than has ever been presented to the public, and more complete in the classes of facts selected for exposition.

MAPS. The larger charts consist of sixteen sheets, mounted as a single outline map of the United States, in size 17 by 12 feet, six in number, as follows:

1. Showing in five classes, by degrees of tinting, the value of the farm-lands of the United States by groups of counties, the first class including all below $10 per acre; the second, those not less than $10, and not exceeding $20; the third, those not less than $20, and not exceeding $30; the fourth, $30, and not exceeding $40; the fifth, $40 and

over.

2. Showing, by five degrees of color, the average monthly wages through the year of farm-labor (without board) in the several States, from records of an investigation made by the statistical division in 1875. The classes are as follows: Under $20: South Carolina, $12.84 ; North Carolina, $13.46; Alabama, $13.60; Georgia, $14.40; Virginia, $14.84; Tennessee, $15.20; Florida, $15.50; Mississippi, $16.40; Kentucky, $18.12; Louisiana, $18.40; Missouri, $19.40; Texas, $19.50. Under $25: Maryland, $20.02; Delaware, $20.33; Arkansas, $20.50; West Virginia, $20.75; New Mexico, $22.75; Kansas, $23.20; Nebraska, $24; Ohio, $24.05; Indiana, $24.20; Iowa, $24.35. Under $30: Illinois, $25.20; Maine, $25.40; Wisconsin, $25.50; Pennsylvania, $25.89; Minnesota, $26.16; New York, $27.14; Michigan, $28.22; Connecticut, $28.25; New Hampshire, $28.57; Vermont, $29.67. Under $35: Rhode Island, $30; New Jersey, $30.71; Massachusetts, $31.87; Dakota, $32.50. $35 and over: Washington, $35; Utah, $35.50; Oregon, $38.25; Colorado, $38.50; California, $44.50; Montana, $45; Wyoming, $47.50. 3. Showing by groups of counties, in five shades of color, the proportion of woodlands in the farm-areas reported in the last census. The first class includes all counties with less than 15 per cent. in forest, the other classes divided, respectively, by 30, 45, and 60 per cent.

4. Showing the distribution of the product of the sugar crops-cane, sorghum, maple, and beet-and indicating, by three shades of color, the relative amount of such production in groups of counties.

5. Showing the distribution of the production of the textile fiberscotton, hemp, flax, and wool—and indicating the localities of greatest production by three shades of color in each. Counties producing less than 1,000 bales of cotton, 50 tons of hemp, 100,000 pounds of flax fiber, or 100,000 pounds of wool are not indicated.

6. Showing the area in fruits of all kinds, by tints of States in four degrees of density, and indicating the prominent fruit sections and kinds of fruits most grown in each. The first class includes all States in which the entire fruit area does not exceed 1 per centum of the improved land in farms; i. e., all farm-lands exclusive of forest and waste areas, viz: Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and the Territories; the second, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Wisconsin; third, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia,