Measure Numbering

I don't know if this is officially a feature request, but I have been trying for a long time to come up with a way to start numbering measures with something other than "1". I am trying to create study excerpts with small parts which might start at measure 157 or something. For now, the only things I can do are add 156 measures of rest, put in a page break (and try to remember to print from page 2) - or - manually add text at each stave.