REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. WASHINGTON, D. C., November 15, 1918. SIR: The part the millions of men, women, boys, and girls on the farms and the organized agricultural agencies assisting them, including the Federal Department of Agriculture, the State colleges and departments of agriculture, and farmers' organizations, played during the war in sustaining this Nation and those with which we are associated is striking but altogether too little known and appreciated. On them rested the responsibility for maintaining and increasing food production and for assisting in securing fuller conservation of food and feed stuffs. The satisfactory execution of their task was of supreme importance and difficulty. The proper utilization of available foods is one thing; the increase of production along economic lines is quite a different thing. It is prerequisite and fundamental. It is one thing to ask a man to save; it is another to ask him, confronted as he is by the chances of the market and the risk of loss from disease, flood, and drouth, to put his labor and capital into the production of food, feeds, and the raw material for clothing. The work of the agricultural agencies is not much in the public eye. There is little of the dramatic about it. The millions of people in the rural districts are directly affected by it and are in more or less intimate touch with it, but to the great urban population it is comparatively unknown. Usually people in cities devote very little thought to the rural districts; and many of them fortunately, in normal times, have to concern themselves little about the food supply and its sources. The daily press occupies itself largely with the news of the hour, and the magazines have their attention centered chiefly on other activities. Consequently, the people in large centers have slight opportunity to acquaint themselves with rural problems and agencies. Although the Nation has, in its Federal Department and the State colleges and departments, agricultural agencies for the 3 improvement of farming which, in point of personnel, financial support, and effectiveness, excel those of any other three nations combined, very many urban people were unaware of the existence of such institutions, and not a few representations were made to the effect that an administration ought to be created to secure an increase of production. These people have seen the windows of cities placarded and papers filled with pleas for conservation, for investment in bonds, and for subscriptions to the Red Cross. They have wondered why they have not seen similar evidence of activity in the field of agriculture. They did not know of the thousands of men and women quietly working in every rural community of the Nation and of the millions of bulletins and circulars dealing with the problems from many. angles. They overlooked the fact that the field of these workers lies outside of the city and did not recognize that both the problem and the methods were different. Within the last year there has been a change. The attention of the world has been directed to its food supply, and agriculture has assumed a place of even greater importance in the world's thought. More space has been devoted to it by the daily press and weekly journals and magazines. This is gratifying. The towns and cities, all of them directly dependent upon agriculture for their existence and most of them for their growth and prosperity, must of necessity take an intelligent, constructive interest in rural problems and in the betterment of rural life. This they can do effectively only as they inform themselves and lend their support to the carefully conceived plans of Federal and State organizations responsible for leadership and of the more thoughtful and successful farmers. For some time it has been part of the plans of this Department to enlist the more complete cooperation of bankers and other business men and of their associations in the effort to make agriculture more profitable and rural communities more healthful and attractive. Recent events have lent emphasis to the appeals and very marked responses have been made in every part of the Union. THE AGRICULTURAL EFFORT. The efforts put forth by the farmers and the agricultural organizations to secure increased production can perhaps best be concretely indicated in terms of planting operations. The size of the harvest may not be the measure of the labors of the farmers. Adverse weather conditions and unusual ravages of insects or plant diseases may partly overcome and neutralize the most exceptional exertions. ACREAGE. The first year of our participation in the war, 1917, witnessed the Nation's record for acreage planted-283,000,000 of the leading cereals, potatoes, tobacco, and cotton, as against 261,000,000 for the preceding year, 251,000,000 for the year prior to the outbreak of the European war, and 248,000,000 for the five-year average, 1910-1914. This is a gain of 22,000,000 over the year preceding our entry into the war and of 35,000,000 over the five-year average indicated. Even this record was exceeded the second year of the war. There was planted in 1918 for the same crops 289,000,000 acres, an increase over the preceding record year of 5,600,000. It is especially noteworthy that, while the acreage planted in wheat in 1917 was slightly less than that for the record year of 1915, it exceeded the five-year average (1910-1914) by 7,000,000; that the acreage planted in 1918 exceeded the previous record by 3,500,000; and that the indications are that the acreage planted during the current fall season will considerably exceed that of any preceding fall planting. YIELDS. In each of the last two years climatic conditions over considerable sections of the Union were adverse in 1917 especially for wheat and in 1918 for corn. Notwithstanding this fact, the aggregate yield of the leading cereals in each of these years exceeded that of any preceding year in the Nation's history except 1915. The estimated total for 1917 was 5,796,000,000 bushels and for 1918, 5,638,000,000 bushels, a decrease of approximately 160,000,000 bushels. But the conclusion would be unwarranted that the available supplies for human food or the aggregate nutritive value will be less in 1918 than in 1917. Fortunately, the wheat production for the current year-918,920,000 bushels-is greatly in excess of that for each of the preceding two years, 650,828,000 in 1917 and 636,318,000 in 1916, and is next to the record wheat crop of the Nation. The estimated corn crop, 2,749,000,000 bushels, exceeds the five-year prewar average by 17,000,000 bushels, is 3.4 per cent above the average in quality, and greatly superior to that of 1917. It has been estimated that of the |