The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1895-07-23
TO GET FULL AGRICULTURAL
RETURNS.
Correspondence of the Progressive Farmer.
WASHINGTON. 7. q.

Inc DoSG pldu IOE S0CuEluS 6OSOluG6Iy |
accurate returns of the yield of cereals !
in this country, is a subject that is at
tracing a great deal of attention at
present, and one on which variety of
opinions have been expressed both by
the press and the public.
With view of getting an authentic
statement as to the position of the gov
ernment authorities on this subject,
Secretary Morton was visited by a
representative of the Associated Trade
and Industrial Press. and in response
to request for his views, stated that
the best plan, in his opinion, was to
license the threshers and corn shelters
of the country, and in return for this
license, the threshers should be re-
quired to furnish the goverDm 2nt with
accurate statements of the amount of
grain threshed and corn shelled by
them.
He admits that this plan would re
quire the concerted action of all the
States of the U0ion That every
thresher and corn shelter who was at
all known to such professionally should
be required by the properly constituted
authorities to show license from the
Bureau of Agriculture for his right to
practice this profession or trade; and
in return for this license he should be
required to furnish the government,
under oath, accurate statements of the
success or failure of the cereal
harvests, asapparent from the amounts
of grain threshed or shelled, as the case
may be, by him.
Sinc9 the general government as Mr..
Morton understood it, had no jurisdic-
ton over the States, in this respect, as
yet, still he thought it becoming more
and more necessary for the country to
''get together" and aid the Secretary
of Agriculture in this work, and not
be satisfied to simply pore ever the
crop reports, and anxiousiy watch the
weather map, and wait patiently, but
with growing anxiety for the cold wave
flag in summer, and the indications of
spring in winter.
At the suggestion of the Secretary,
Mr.. Robinson, the S5atistician of the
Department, was also seen, and ex-
pressed the opinion that the plan of
the Secretary's was emir entity Drac
tical, in SO far S it concerned the
States, and if adopted by the States
separately, would result in benefit to
both the local agricultural bureaus aud
the threshers. Tne idea of licensing
the threshers and shelters was, he
thought, to be regarded in the same
light as licensing any other trade or
profession. Threshers going from farm
TO farm, during the harvest season,
should be licensed under this plan, the
same as peddlers or those who followed
any special trade, as a trade.
When asked for his personal opinion,
Mr.. Robinson stated that he differed
from the Secretary in regard to the
method to be employed to secure these
returns. His predecessors. he said,
had experimental to considerable ex,
tent in order to obtain accurate results.
| He had communicated directly with
the farmers in the different counties
and townships of the grain producing
States, and in various ways made it to
their interest to give the government
yearly returns of the crop yield. This
plan, for a while, worked successfully,
but the interest in gathering these re-
ports soon died out, as there was no jH
centive for these farmers TO make~such
returns, sufficient to warI6nt the
necessary consumption OF time and
energy.
Now the system 81 present in vogue
is that of employing a salaried man,
whose duty It's to inspect the harvest
OF each county, and make sworn re,
turns 20 theauthoritiesa as to the amount
OF gain thresned and corn shelled in
HfheI county. Even this plan has been
found to be incomplete, and now the
department is considering the advisa
bility of putting into execution a plan
of this kind: that each thresher. as he
goes from farm to farm, plying his
trade as a thresher or shelter, as the
case may be, being already required
by the farmer for whom he works, to
return to him an accurate account of
the amount and quality of cereals
threshed, might be, for small consid
GRAFTON, induced to furnish the govern
meqt with duplicate Of this report,
with sworn statement as TO its valid
ity. OF course this inducement would
be in the nature OF a bribe, (and here
the genial statistician's face waslit by a