Arkansas true Democrat., 1857-09-22
From Moore's Rural New Y STATISTICS OF c.popo
Fun .for Proc"ing, by Concert of Action on,. the Agr'c"'t"ra! Societies Of tue q. &
 BY LIEUT.. NJ. F. MAURy

What would it not be worth to the far,oo... ;. annually at harvest tme and at otha. %"er % periods ot the year, he were accurataIv i' y'a'ea ed as to the state and condition of tba l- l- throughout the country? Let us sea ;f Uops for obtaining such information may ,n+ P'aa on foot. The machinery for it is aIreaT set working order. i4
 Intelligent merchants collect such r.
 statistics, and opinions as they can copcor,N the great commercial staples of the co,..-S they then send them forth in the sbano s.'U!; "s culars addressed to their foreign and Jo,.o.r' CIT correspondents, and business operations of f'S'c extenta are often based on them. As tbin,.o's"' o's"' stand, the merchant knows more abo1t uO" crops than the farmer But the farroosI Ine 1t in their power to collect much mora S nave ant, reliable and valuable statistics coreo.. 1ld- the growing or the ripenins crops than ifi,rNs sibe for any merchant, however intalIrsP P0S- enterprising he may be, to do single han5a3
 Almost if not every State in the ITnior
 now it's we'll organized and active AgrcnItn.aSI aS Society. Here, then, is the machinery aIraa%, at hand for collecting, digesiing and spre,JfI! before the public the desired information 5 the suggestion which is now ventured is ir lDU few words simply this:-that each S.ate A,,
 
 al meeting, its committee on crops and s,a tistics,-let the members of this committee %. caoSen from different parts of the State, as ora for each county, township or parish, so that i, may take cOgnizance equally of every sec,;on with its peculiar interests and conditions Iot chairman be selected by the society, or cbo sen by the committee; and then let it he ,bo duty of members to report monthly to tbo chairman, each for his county or beat, the s,ato of the crops according to the season. of the Wear and the best of his ability or opportunities ,o observe and judge. Let 1t then be the duty of the chairman to make synopsis of each set of monthly reports as they are received, and to publish his summary thereof in the agriculu. ral and other papers of the State, or in such other journals as the society may direct; and let no one be put on the committee unless he be pledged to attend faithfully to the duties thereof In Louisiana, for instance, these sta tistics would relate chiefly to sugar, cotton, aud corn; in kentuck, to hemp, stock and tobacco; iu New York, to hay, the cereals, the dairy, fruits, etc, each State, or tier of States attach ing, as matter of course, most importance to Its own staples.
 The time of this writing is June, and the point of interest with the farmers, just now-- especially i'll the wheat growing States-s what Is wheat going to bring? Some hold one opinion some another, differing 10, 20, 3O 40 nay as much as 50 cents iu their estimates ofits price by the bushei; and it is for the most part opinion merely, formed without any very accu- rate information in detail as to the crops gene. rally or the quantity or quality that will come forward to answer the demand in market
 Now, suppose that one observant and inteIli, gent farmer in each county of the State of New York, for instance should sit down Io-moTrow and write a report to you as to the wheat crop in his uei 5hborhood or county, stating whether the promised yield Is above or below the aver age, its quality, etc., and that you should pub. fish in the next number of the Rural, the res 1t of all these reports, what would not such lt- formation be worth? ButsuPpooe further, that d set Ot farmers n each of the wheat growing States should do likewise, each set mdkug similar returns for its own State, to its owAel.- tors--wouid we not tini in the number of the agricultural journals containing sucn returns, more, and better information concerning the crops about to come forward than those who cultivate them ever before possessed lu ad- vance?
 After the crops of all kinds are harvested, then the next monthly report of the commit tees would treat of the preparations for the suc- ceeding year, whether the breadth of land n course of preparation for this or that staple was out of the usual proportion, etc. It Is easy to perceive that, with working and intelligent com mittees, each month would attach to these r8- ports some feature peculiar to itself, and of u- cacuabe value when taken for the whole country.
 Nor in carrying out this plan should the United States A Agricultural Society be forgotten n Q m t9rp wa 1ttta .i party, to know the state of the crops in foreign lands with the labor of which his produce has to compete in the markets of the world. Hence there are duties for this society in the progam- me, which no other of the agricultural societies can perform as well.
 The Virginia planter, for instance, is com mercially not more deeply interested in the wheat crop of his own neighbor than he is in that of Ohio or of any other State Nay the wheat grower iu every one of the States is al- mostif not quite as much concerned 10 know the state of the crops in France and England as he Is to know their value in the resg of the States of the Union. Il the sugar crop in Gu Oa or Brazil be likely to fall short, or if the cotton crop of Egypt, or the rice crop Of India, or the grain crop of Europe promise to be ex- cesSlve, then there are large communities of our fellow citizens in every State of this Union di. rectly concerned, and whose agricultural inter- eStS would Sensibly feel the effect of such state of things; a knowledge of the fact would be of vast benefit, especially to those of them who have to meet in the markets of the world the short or abundant crops of their foreign com petltors.
 We have seen the time when the news brought by the last steamer from Europe as to the fall m price of a single staple, as of cotton for instance, was equivalent ln the az gregate for the planters to d loss upon the whole crop ot the country of millions of dollars Now, for ausht we know, this decline in the price of cotton may have been owing to reports got up for speculation in the first instance for many a speculation has been made upon the assump- ton of the farmers ignorance of the state the crops Tn other parts of the world, and even of his own country. The same thing, at least to d certain extent, happens every year, and aL- most every day in the year, with wheat, sugar. tobacco, corn and every other staple of agricul- tural produce the farmer has to sell The rise or fall of a cent or two in the bushe for corn or wheat, Is equal to an increase or dimiuuton in the agricultural wealth amounting to millions ot dollars in the aggregate. If the crops be short, why should not the farmers be the hrst to find 1t outp
 
 Stufs are-we know where the market places arc--aud we know what n itions will meet us as competitors in those markets. We likewise knoW how many mouths our customers have to hIl; at least We may know, for the merchants can tell us all thiS-and the question then 'r the farmer iS,-llow much has the country to spare? Where he knows that then the price of hs crop for the year is fixed. Hence 1t would be desrab blc for the statistical committee of the United States Agricultural Society to look abroad also. It's members shouli nyt only collect and digest the monthly summaries pub ilshed by the State committees, but they should also enter into correspondence with for eign societies and fuuctionaries with the view of obtaining from them information concerning the state of their crops or the preparation for seeding ln other parts of the world whose pro- ductions come into competition with our own and of these let that committee publish quar- terly or annual returns as the society may d.