“The commodity markets are in a state of nervous expectancy as the time approaches for the official forecasts, because great values are at stake. It has been estimated that in the case of the cotton crop alone an error in the forecasts which should lead to a depression of one cent a pound in the price of cotton-lint would--assuming a crop equal to that of 1914--entail a loss of eighty million dollars to the farmers. The vast values at stake and the dangers when no official estimate is available of the manipulation of the markets in the interest of speculators are held to justify the large recurrent annual cost of the employment of the numerous correspondents, clerks, and experts.” Professor Moore is one of those who have pointed out that the forecasts based upon the actual condition of the growing crops can be vastly improved by a mathematical analysis of the weather reports from the various regions in which the crops are grown. In fact, he goes so far as to assert that much better forecasts can be made from the weather reports alone than from reports on the condition of the crops. Whether or not this view is unduly optimistic, it goes without saying that the precise data which agricultural meteorology is now acquiring cannot fail to enhance greatly the accuracy of crop forecasts. Of course, the weather has always been watched with keen interest by everybody concerned with the purchase or sale of agricultural products and has been one of the chief factors determining the rise and fall of prices. At produce exchanges throughout the United States daily weather bulletins are received from the agricultural districts, and at many of them a large weather map is drawn every morning by an employee of the Weather Bureau detailed for this purpose. The Bureau has made various other arrangements for supplying the information that is so eagerly desired concerning the weather as it affects crops, as well as the animal industries. During the “growing season” in the cotton, corn, wheat, sugar, rice, broom-corn and cattle-producing areas, designated centers receive telegraphic reports of rainfall and the daily extremes of temperature from substations in the regions concerned, and these are distributed in bulletin form. Each local center, besides publishing detailed reports from its own area, issues condensed reports from all the others. The Bureau also issues every week during the agricultural season a “National Weather and Crop Bulletin,” with text and charts setting forth the current conditions of moisture, temperature, etc., and the state of the crops in all parts of the country.