Excerpts from the Foreword: In 1988, the National Agricultural Statistics Service commemorated 125 continuous years of agricultural statistics in the United States Department of Agriculture. The celebration took many forms including a new video tape on the Agency, special publicity materials, displays at national meetings, and a 3-day open house centered around the July crop report. One of the extra aspects added to the celebration effort was a series of historical articles tracing acreage, production, and price trends for statistics that have been available for most of the 125 years. This publication compiles all of the historical articles into one volume. It is designed to serve as a multi-purpose reference guide to American agricultural trends. (At least as far as trends for those items which have remained important throughout the full period. No effort was made to trace the demise of cowpeas, broom corn, and the numbers of horses and mules used for power or to chart the rise in this century of soybean production.) This publication is also designed to aid future agricultural statisticians when the USDA celebrates 150 years, 200 years, etc., of reports.