The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-12-27 00:00:00

THE UNITED STATES CENSUS.

General Francis A. Walker, Superintendent of the
Census, reporting on the arrangemants made for taking
the tenth census of the United States, notes that there
is a census day and a census year. The census day is
June 1, 1880; the census year comprises 12 months
ending on that day. For the census day the law
requires the statistics of the then living inhabi-
tants, embracing the facts of age, sex, colour,
nationality, occupation, illiteracy, &o. For the
census year the law requires the statistics of agricul-
ture, manufactures, mining, and the fisheries, of taxa-
tion and public education, of mortality and the causes
of death, during the entire period. Tht. census year
is now current, and these classes of statistics are being
collected, so far as may be, as they occur; the statistics
will be thus more accurate than by waiting till the
close of year, and then seeking to recover them by re-
collection, which is al ways certain to be more or less
defective or erroneous.

General Walker recommends that the inquiry re.
gardiug the holders of the public debt be omitted from
the population schedule as ueekss and aggravating.
rho superintendent, in concluding his repott, raises
the question whether, as heretofore, a copy of the re-
turns should be made. The least coat of such a copy
would be 130,030 dole. The only use of the copy
woalri be in case of the accidental destruction of the
original schedule, and the expenditure, if made,
would be simply a form of insurance. Whether so
large an expenditure would be justified by its object,
the superintendent submits to the decision of the de-
partment concerned.

RED RUST IN AUSTRALIAN WHEAT.
It will be an unparalleled disaster for Australia
if, after having achieved the proud distinction of
being the producer of the finest wheat in the world,
her productive powers were to be seriously impaired
by disease in what is, next to wool, her chief agri-
cultural product. The bare suggestion of such a
possibility is enough to excite alarm; but, with the
experience of the ravages caused among the French
vineyards by a plague similar to that which is
attracting att ,ntion to the wheat fields of Australia,
it is not surprising that colonial farmers should feel
uneasiness at the prospect, however remote it may
prove. Complaints of the existence of "red rust" in
wheat reach us from South Australia—the premier
wheat-growing colony, which took the pure for
wheat against all comers at the Paris Exhibition
--from Queensland, from Victoria, ana more re-
cently from New South Wales. The disease is
due to the existence of a minute insect para-
site, somewhat similar to the phylloxera—the ap-
pearance of which on the growing crops has given rise
to the expressive name popularly applied to the pest.
In one or two instances, the "red rust "-like appear.
ance is said to have been due to the growth of a
parasitic fungus, similer to the coffee fungus— hemileia
vastatrix—which has caused the "leaf disease" among
the coffee plants of Ceylon, Brazil, &c. If this is the
case, there would appear to be two separate diseases
e valent among the Australian wheatfields. Careful in-
quiry over so large an area is difficult, if not impossible,
unless undertaken by some properly constituted and
competent authority, and it is satisfactory to see that
a step towards elucidating the problem of the cause and
cure of the pest has been taken in the projected offer
by the Queensland Government of a reward of £l,OOO
for the aiscovery of a remedy. The South Australian
authorities, we believe, made a somewhat similar offer
some time ago, but nothing came of it, and it would
be much more advantageous if the Colonial Govern-
ment would unite in issuing a Commission to pro-
perly investigate the matter throughout the various
districts in which complaints of wheat disease exist, If
allowed to spread the pest may endanger the agricul-
tural prosperity of the whole country. It was stated
some time ago that one-fourth of the actual wheat-
producing area of the colony of Victoria was already
destroyed. This statement was probably an exaggera-
tion arising from natural alarm; but it is quite time
that steps should be taken to check and eradicate the
evil before alarmist fears develop into reality.—Globe.