Los Angeles daily herald., 1890-01-28

II IL hecOmmeu0ed by the STATE
| Board of Agriculture.
Secretary Patton, of the Chamber o
Commerce yesterday received the fol
lowing communication from E. F
Smith, the secretary of the State Boar
of Agriculture:
| JANUARY "a, 1890.
Mr.. III. ". Patton Secretary Chamber oj
Commerce, Los angeles, Cal:
DEAR SIR-Yours of the 18th, enclos-
ing series OF resolutions adopted by the
Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce
relative to the collection of statistics by
local agricultural associations, has been
received. l will submit the same to the
State Board OF Agriculture at their meet
ing of the 31st inst.
In this connection permit me to make
few suggestions. In the first place l
think it wholly impracticable as a rule
to obtain information through the sources
you suggest, as the resources of the Dis
trict Agricultural Associations are not
large enough to do this work. I have
looked into the matter and think it will
require the constant attention of from
three to five men in each district the
greater portion of the year.
We are 30 differently located from
other States in the Union; the territory
we have to cover is of such an extent
that it would require greater numbe
of correspondents than any State in the
Union except probably Texas, and the
clerical work is such as requires thor
oughly competent man to handle il.
Statistics, as you are aware, are worse
than useless unless absolutely correct, as
careless work is misleading and danger
GUS to the community reported.
l have had considerable experience in
gathering crop statistics, and have relied
upon volunteer correspondents and thoee
that were remunerated, and have always
found the latter more accurate and satis-
factory. OF course there are men who
will claim that they can accomplish the
desired result with but little effort and
expense, but the character of the work
they accomplish is not always up to rep.
resentation.
Now, in my mind, the only way to &C.
complish what you wish is for bodies OF
your character to petition the Legisla-
ture and instruct your Senators and leg
ielators to favor the establishment of q
bureau OF statistics, to be placed under
the supervision of the State Board of
Agriculture or any other body deemed
capable Of experimenting your work,
and let that body select paid correspon-
dents in each county, or say two or three
in the larger counties, to make monthly
returns of crop prospects and such other
data of value to the public in general.
These reports could be published in a
monthly bulletin and be distributed in
all parts of the country; but until some
such system is adopted it will be diff
cult for us to obtain anything like accur-
ate statistics. Very truly,
E. F. SMITH.
The resolutions referred to in the first
paragraph of this letter were passed at a
recent meeting of the Board Of Directors
of the Chamber of Commerce. They
advised the State Board Of Agriculture to
rely in some degree upon the local or
ganizations, such as Boards of Trade and
Chambers of Commerce, for the statistics
which were to be published about vari-
GUS sections of The State, instead of get
ting out grossly inaccurate estimates, as
has usuallv been the custom of the or.