The Statistical Reporting Service is the main fact-gathering agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This organization for collecting and disseminating current primary data on agriculture has been in operation for more than 100 years. Although the name of the organization has changed several times and its job has become bigger, its major objective has remained the same, which is to report the basic statistical facts of the nation's agriculture.

This work examines the United States Department of Agriculture's reporting services which covers the entire breadth of agriculture.

This publication is a revision of the third in a series called Market Diseases of Fruits and Vegetables. The series is designed to aid in recognition and identification of pathological conditions of economic importance affecting fruits and vegetables in the channels of marketing, in order to facilitate the market inspection of these food products and to prevent losses from such conditions.