The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-03-09
How Uncle Sam Counts Crops

With all of Uncle Sans enormous
business dealings, with all his tens of
thousands Of banks and his millions Of
factories and his railroads and ships and
men. all working to earn money he stu
depends each year on the great bank
Of nature 10 keep his supply Of money
going.
IT is the new property that is produc-
ed for him each year by the soil. in the
form OF crops. that makes his real
Therefore. one of the most important
things for him to know each year IS
how much money he may expect 70 nnd
in that great bank, the earth He must
md this out for hundreds OF dllIerent
reasons.
In the first place, the United States as
g government. must know how much
money the country has produced and
how much food there is going to be for
the population. Then there are the
hundreds of thousands of miles of rail-
roads that want to know how much
freight they must prepare fOr-hOW
many carloads of grain and other crops
are TO be carried by them. To move the
crops of the country each year IS one of
the most important Of the national
problems, although the work is done by
private individuals.
The owners and breeders of live stock
want to know how big the crops OF food
for cattle are, for if the crops are small
the price may be expected to become
hiph and then it might pay them better
to slaughter hundreds of thousands OF
cattle and sell them their meat rather
than TO keep and feed them.
The manufacturers of clothing want
90 know what the cotton crop is going to
be All the people of All the world want
10 know what our wheat crop is to be
like Every steamship in the world IS
Interested in one way or another in our
crops, for any one of them. even ships
away off on the Gauges river and in the
Yellow sea, may get some to carry.
Now all this information about all the
crons of that immense country of Uncle
Sam must be collected between the time
that it is ripe and the time that it is
gathered. The country cannot wait un-
til after it has been gathered for that
would be too late. The railroads and
the foreign dealers and thousands of
other people would not be ready for il
then, and every day IS precious AFTER the
crops are in
Neither would It do to count the crop
before it is ripe. All kinds of things
might happen to 1t and all the figures
might turn out wrong if they We're pre-
pared too soon.
crop figuring is q work that makes
thousands OF mis- employees work fever
isnly in order to do an immense work II
a short time
OF course he cannot send out men 20
count the crops in each farm in the
country. That would require armies OF
men. and even then the figures would
not be ready in time.
Uncle sam has a different system.
He has on his list more than 150,00e
persons throughout the United States
who are in q position to know thorough
ly we'll what the crops are going to he
in their various sections. They are
farmers. who know because it is their
business bankers who know because
they often lend money on standing
crops: merchants, VINO deal directly iH
some way with crops, and cotton gin
ners. millers. grain elevator owners ana
railroad men
These persons all report to Washing
ton. each enc telling what ne knows
about the crop that year and what he
thinks il win be like in his section
But Uncle sam does not depend on
these men alone Some of them might
make mis- takes, others might not be will
ing to tell everything they know, ard
SO On
So Uncle sam has thfrty-eight ners
stationed in the most important agrt-H
cultural states in the Union Each eff
these men studies the crops Of his own
state and has on his Hist another set OF
correspondents, entirely different from
those who report TO Uncle sam Theirs
are about 10000 Of these special CORE
spondents. and every one of them sends
In his own independent figures.
Then. in each agricultural county the
government has stiu another crop CORE
spondent, and he in turn has three or
four correspondents in that particular
county. These people report everything
they know about their special counties
There are TO- GOO Of these. too
Not cOntent with this the govern
ment has still another staff of CORE
spondents ia each township and voting
precinct in the United States where
there is any farming There are Sc. 600
Of these men and each tells only about
MS particular township.
Each one OF this immense army re-
ports eleven times q year.
Still this is not all For instance to
ind out about the cotton crop, the fig
ures sent in by the correspondents
mentioned. are revised and compared
with the figures sent in separately by
$4,000 cotton gin owners and $4,000
bankers and other business men.
To compare the figures for the pro
duction of grains and cereals, Uncle
sam gets separate reports from $1,000