constructive work of the Department, the Food Administration, the State colleges of agriculture and experiment stations, and many State and local organizations interested in maintaining, conserving, marketing, and distributing the food supply.

For collecting original data the bureau has two main sources of information-voluntary reporters and salaried field agents. The voluntary force comprises 33,743 township reporters, one for each agricultural township; 2,752 county reporters, who report monthly or oftener on county-wide conditions, basing their estimates on personal observation, inquiry, and written reports of aids, of whom there are about 5,500; 19 special lists, aggregating 137,000 names, who report on particular products, such as live stock, cotton, wool, rice, tobacco, potatoes, apples, peanuts, beans, and the like; and 20,160 field aids, including the best informed men in each State, who report directly to the salaried field agents of the bureau. The total voluntary staff, therefore, numbers approximately 200,000, an average of about 66 for each county and 4 for each township. The reporters, as a rule, are farmers. They serve without compensation, and are selected and retained on the lists because of their knowledge of local conditions, their public spirit, and their interest in the work. All except county and field aids report directly to the bureau, and each class of reports is tabulated and averaged separately for each crop and State.

The bureau has 42 salaried field agents, one stationed permanently in each of the principal States or group of small States, and 11 crop specialists. These employees are in the classified civil service. All have had some practical experience in farming. Most of them are graduates of agricultural colleges, and are trained in statistical methods and crop estimating. They travel approximately three weeks each month, the fourth week being required for tabulating and summarizing the data collected. They send their reports directly to the Department in special envelopes or telegraph them in code. These are carefully safeguarded until the Crop Report is issued.

Additional information is secured from the Weather Bureau, the Bureau of the Census, State tax assessors, thrashers, grain mills and elevators, grain transportation lines, the principal live-stock markets, boards of trade and chambers of commerce, growers and shippers' associations, and various private crop estimating agencies.

Specific reports from the field service are assembled in Washington, tabulated, averaged, and summarized separately for each source, each crop, and each State. The resulting figures are checked against one another and against similar data for the previous month, for the same month of the previous year, and for the average of the same month for the previous 10 years; and a separate and independent estimate for each crop and State is made by each member of the crop reporting board, after which the board agrees upon and adopts a single figure for each crop and State.

This, in brief, is an outline of the organization and system which has been developed in the Department through more than half a century of experience in crop estimating, and indicates the care and thoroughness with which Government crop reports are prepared. Because the monthly Government crop reports and annual estimates are fundamentally important as the basis of programs of the Department and the State colleges of agriculture for crop and live-stock production, marketing, distribution, and conservation, for the promotion of agriculture as an industry, for the guidance of individual farmers, for appropriate national and State legislation affecting agriculture and the food supply, it is believed that the crop-reporting service should be strengthened. This should be done through estimates by counties as well as by States. Then a near approach to census completeness and accuracy could be made, especially with reference to crop acreages and numbers of live stock; a clearer differentiation between total production and the commercial surplus would be possible, and the Department would be better able to analyze, chart, and report country and world-wide agricultural conditions with special reference to surplus and deficient crop and live stock production.

SEED-GRAIN LOANS IN DROUTH AREAS.

Acting upon urgent representations that many wheat growers in certain sections of the West who lost two successive crops by winter killing and drouth had exhausted their resources and might be compelled to forego fall planting and, in some cases, to abandon their homes unless immediate assistance was extended, the President, at my suggestion, on July 27 placed $5,000,000 at the disposal of the Treasury Department and the Department of Agriculture to enable them to furnish aid to that extent. The pri

mary object of this fund was not to stimulate the planting of an increased fall acreage of wheat in the severely affected drouth areas, or even necessarily to secure the planting of a normal acreage, but rather to assist in tiding the farmers over the period of stress, to enable them to remain on their farms, and to plant such acreage as might be deemed wise under all conditions, with a view to increase the food supply of the Nation and to add to the national security and defense. It was distinctly not intended to be used to stimulate the planting of wheat or any other grain where such planting is not wise from an agricultural view and where other crops or activities are safer.

The Federal land banks of the districts embracing the affected areas were designated as the financial agents of the Government to make and collect the loans. The cooperation of local banks was sought and secured in the taking of applications and in the temporary financing of farmers pending advances of Federal funds upon approved applications and the execution of necessary papers.

Assistant Secretary G. I. Christie was designated to represent the Department of Agriculture in the Northwest, and Mr. Leon M. Estabrook, Chief of the Bureau of Crop Estimates, in the Southwest, in organizing the work and approving seed-loan applications. These officers were instructed to cooperate fully with the land banks in their districts acting for the Treasury Department. Several agronomists and field agents were detailed to assist each of this Department's representatives. The Northwest district included the western portion of North Dakota and portions of Montana and Washington; the Southwest district, portions of western Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and eastern New Mexico. Early in August headquarters were established at Great Falls, Mont., and at Wichita, Kans. Conferences were held with specialists of the State colleges of agriculture, and a list of counties was agreed upon in which it was deemed wise to make loans. County agents represented the Department of Agriculture in each county and, with the assistance of local inspection committees made up of members of county farm bureaus and county councils of defense, inspected the fields and verified the sworn statements of the applicants.

Loans were made only to farmers who, by reason of two successive crop failures resulting from drouth in the community had exhausted

their commercial credit. A limit of $3 an acre on not more than 100 acres was fixed. The farmers agreed to use seed and methods approved by the Department. They signed a promissory note for the amount of the loan, with interest at the rate of 6 per cent, payable in the fall of 1919, and executed a mortgage giving the Government a first lien on the crop to be grown on the acreage specified. Furthermore, provision was made for a guarantee fund, each borrower agreeing to contribute 15 cents for each bushel in excess of a yield of 6 bushels per acre planted under the agreement. A maximum contribution of 75 cents per acre was fixed. The object of this fund is to safeguard the Government against loss. If it exceeds the loss it will be refunded pro rata to the contributors.

The demands for assistance were smaller than had been represented or anticipated. Estimates and suggestions for appropriations ranging from $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 had been made. Approximately 1,835 applications were approved in the Northwest for a total of $371,198, and in the Southwest 8,806 for $2,025,262, or a total of 10,641 applications, involving $2,396,460. The number and amount for each State are:

It was recognized that there were farmers in the Northwest who would probably be in even more urgent need of assistance for their spring operations. As soon as it was seen that there would be a considerable unexpended balance from the fall planting activities, announcement was made that it would be expended for the spring planting of wheat. Since the cost of seeding spring wheat is greater than that for the fall, it was indicated that the loan would be made on the basis of $5 an acre, with a limitation of 100 acres. It appears from a survey of the situation that the remainder of the fund will take care of the urgent cases.

The spirit of the farmers in both sections was exceptionally fine. Only those seem to have sought aid who could not otherwise remain

on their farms and continue their operations. The number who appeared permanently to have abandoned their homes was relatively small. A considerable number of the men found temporary employment either in the industries of the West or on transportation lines, earning enough to provide for the subsistence of their families and to carry their live stock through the winter.

THE FARM-LABOR SUPPLY.

The Department of Agriculture continued throughout the year to give earnest attention to the securing and mobilization of an adequate supply of farm labor. It maintained its representatives, stationed in each State in the spring of 1917, and perfected its own organization, enlisting the more active cooperation of the county agents and other extension workers. It more fully coordinated its activities with the Department of Labor, a representative of this Department having been designated a member of the War Labor Policies Board which was created by the President. It also aided the War Department in connection with the classification of agricultural registrants. Special efforts were made, beginning early in the year, to impress upon the residents of urban communities the necessity of aiding farmers in the planting and harvesting of their crops. The response to appeals along this line was generous. In Kansas, for example, where the situation was especially difficult, the reports indicate that more than 45,000 workers were supplied to farmers to assist in the wheat harvest. The potato crop in two counties in Texas was saved through the aid of the business men in the local communities, and in Illinois 35,000 workers were registered for harvest work. Many other examples could be cited, but the results of all these activities are clearly indicated by the fact that, although the largest acreage on record was planted, the great crops of the year were harvested under difficulties not appreciably greater than those in normal times.

PUBLICATION AND INFORMATION WORK.

The dissemination of useful and timely printed information in relation to agriculture is one of the prime functions of the Department. This is the task primarily of the Division of Publications and the Office of Information. It has reached great proportions. There were published during the year 2,546 documents of all kinds, the editions of which aggregated 97,259,399 copies, an increase of