Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1897 — TO IMPROVE CROP REPORTS. [ARTICLE]

TO IMPROVE CROP REPORTS.

Statistician Hyde Says the Present System Is Cutnbrons. The annual report of the statistician of the Department of Agriculture. John Hyde, was issued Wednesday. It is devoted mainly to criticism of the cumbrous and unbusinesslike crop reporting system that has been in use m the department during the Just few years, and to recommendations looking to an improvement of the system. Mr. Hyde states that his brief official connection with the division has been sufficient to impress him strongly with the extreme cumbrousness of the existing system of crop reporting; with the fact that the information obtained is utterly Incommensurate with the labor involved in its collection, and with the disadvantage under which the farmer labors in being placed in possession so much less promptly than other citizens of the information which the department publishes from time to time concerning the condition of crops hi this and other countries.