Report

of December.—Production and average price per bushel on December 1 of corn, wheat, oats, rye, barley, buckwheat, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, hay, and rice. Area sown and average condition of winter wheat, winter rye. Average price per pound of cotton and leaf tobacco. In reporting the condition of the crops the basis is 100, which stands for a normal condition. Therefore, a condition above 100 is above the normal, while a condition below 100 is es below the normal. A normal condition is a condition that indicates a full crop— not an average crop, which lacks something of being a full crop; nor yet an extraordinary crop, which is more than (is in exce of) a full crop. The normal condition, or a condition of 100 per cent, is defined as follows in “The Crop Reporter,” a publication of the Department of Agriculture: THE NORMAL. So many of the reports of the Statistician of the Department of Agriculture are based upon a comparison with the “normal” that it is a matter of the greatest importance that there should be a clear understanding of what the normal really means. } To begin with, a normal condition is not an average condition, but a condition above the average, giving promise of more than an average crop.