This project is jointly sponsored by the Mann Library at Cornell University and the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It contains more than 250 data sets, and more are due to be added. These data sets cover a very wide range of agricultural topics, and even include international and climate data. They are frequently quite detailed, and are mostly in Lotus 1-2-3 .WK1 format (thus, if you transfer them with ftp, be sure to use the binary mode). Gopher is the preferred connection method (files cannot be transferred with telnet unless your telnet client can call ftp).
gopher://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu:70/11/
telnet://usda@usda.mannlib.cornell.edu
ftp//:usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda