at least have been one of curiosity; but had records, written in this sort of shape [plotted curves] and speaking a language that all the world understands, existed at this day, of the commerce and revenue of ancient nations, what a real acquisition would it not have been to our stock of knowledge! In place of which, a few detached facts are collected and brought forward as the only criterion from which we can judge of the manners and wealth of the ancient world.

"It is not only of importance that this species of information should be handed down, but also that it should go down in such a form and manner as that any person might, even though a native of another country, understand the nature of the business delineated.

". . . If we could have a copy of the custom-house books of Carthage or Tyre for a hundred years, what value might not be set on them! These charts [Playfair's] will be for future nations the same thing that the ancient records we so much desire would be for us now. . . ."

If we search into the past for factual data, we naturally think of libraries. If we could now examine the libraries as they existed at intervals of one hundred years, say one, two, three or four centuries back, what would we find? Probably very little factual

Courtesy of American Chicle Company -- Makers of Dentyne Gum

The First Agricultural Report

GRAPHIC PRESENTATION

information. Even books in our grandfathers' attics, if classified, would be short on factual material and long on abstruse discussion of theories, most of which were of a religious nature or perhaps vaguely astronomic or otherwise theoretical considerations of the universe.