To whom sent. To whom sent. REPORT OF SUPERINTENDENT OF SEED DIVISION. SIR: The following tabular statement shows the quantity and kinds of seeds sent from this division during the year ending December 31, 1868: Buckwheat-1 vari ety. Tappahannock. Total.. 10,498 623 4,650 1,581 16,539 3,284 3,334 The United States and territories embrace about twenty-four degrees of latitude and fifty-eight degrees of longitude, and, in consequence of difference of elevation, direction of winds, and contiguous oceans, wide isothermal differences of temperature are manifest even in the same latitude; but within the different latitudes of these extended limits are found great diversities of climate and soil, adapted to the growth of plants of every quarter of the globe. The distribution of seeds was made with reference to climatic and thermal peculiarities; but the adaptability of seeds to different soils can be satisfactorily ascertained only by the sure test of experiment, and it is, therefore, to be regretted that practical farmers do not, as requested, more generally report to the department the results of their experiments with seeds sent to them. All important facts connected with the cultivation of untried seeds should be carefully noted, and promptly reported to the department. The object of the department in procuring and distributing seeds is, to substitute superior varieties for those which have deteriorated or have become diseased, and to introduce the seeds of new plants, that the resources of our broad and fertile domain may be developed, and its agricultural wealth increased. To accomplish these ends the co-operation of the farmer is indispensable. His farm is a laboratory in which the efficacy of new varieties and the success of novel productions are alike tested. Without an intelligent report, showing the means used and the results reached, the department must remain in doubt in regard to the success and utility of its seed distributions, except as they may be indicated in the steadily increasing products of the land, and in the general improvement of its farming interests. Reports promptly and regularly sent in would enable the department to furnish to the country and to the world an array of facts of great practical interest and value, while this co-operation on the part of farmers would tend surely to the advancement of their own interests, and to the increase of national wealth. Hon. HORACE CAPRON, Commissioner. SENECA DEAN. REPORT ON AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN SIR: In compliance with your request that I should procure certain information bearing upon the art and science of agriculture, I have the honor to submit the following observations: The first and leading fact that arrests the attention of an American observer of agricultural phenomena on visiting Europe is, that in many European countries the annual yield per acre of all the land under cultivation is greatly on the increase from year to year, while in the United States the yield per acre is on the decrease. The question naturally arises: Is this gradual deterioration of American soil proof that Americans are poor farmers, or that our soil is naturally poor? Our soil is the best in the world, and practically we are the most skillful in nearly all the mechanical appliances required in farming. But the question still arises, Are we good farmers? It certainly was not good farming that permitted the soil of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio to deteriorate from a yield of thirty bushels of wheat per acre (and other crops in proportion) to less than fifteen bushels; it was not good farming that permitted large portions of the southern States to become absolutely barren; and it is not good farming that is now permitting the unparalleled soil of our prairie States to grow less and less productive from year to year. These facts suggest painful reflections, and indicate that our great skill in producing and adapting machinery to agricultural purposes, and our unsurpassed practical talent as a nation, are being employed only to exhaust the natural wealth of the country. It was estimated, twenty years ago, that to restore the land then under cultivation in the United States to its original fertility, would cost a thousand millions of dollars. The same wasteful and exhaustive process is to a great extent still continued. Have we, who happen to have possessed the land in its virgin wealth, any moral right thus to contract a national debt, the burden of which will oppress our children and our children's children? It is a delusion to suppose that this crime is greatly mitigated by the fact that our country possesses vast tracts of unoccupied land, to which we can remove as soon as we have partly exhausted our farms. Even if there were no limit to this, yet the argument would be founded upon false principles of political economy. There is a limit, however; and he who rightly estimates the natural increase of our population, augmented by the mighty tide of immigration, must see that all our public domain will soon pass into private hands. Of an average of five hundred to six hundred per day of emigrants who leave the British isles, most of them go to America. Of three hundred thousand emigrants yearly from Germany, a great majority go to America. Also, many other countries, where the population has outgrown the land, are pouring a constant stream of emigration into our country in search of land to till. Is it not high time, then, that we arrive at some system of agriculture which will secure to us, as individuals and as a nation, the benefits of the progress that has been made in countries where, from various causes, more attention has been paid to the cultivation of the soil? England and Scotland are perhaps justly cited as leading all other nations in the art of agriculture. An over-crowded population and a very limited supply of land have made it necessary to adopt the best practices in the cultivation of the soil. The fact that nearly all the land is tilled by tenant farmers, at high rental, prohibits a poor farmer from holding the land, and, sooner or later, the most skillful farmers are put in possession. No matter from what causes the best practices in agriculture are secured, they are equally valuable as examples. Most tenants in England and Scotland are bound in the leases to some system of rotation of crops. That which is most common is called the "four-course system:" 1st, fallow or roots; 2d, wheat or barley; 3d, seeds; 4th, oats. The nature of the soil indicates the rotation. In cases where the tenant is known to be an intelligent and skillful farmer, the landlord often leaves him free to cultivate the land in his own way. There are numerous examples of the application of scientific principles in farming in Great Britain that we might study with great advantage. The Marquis of Tweeddale, for instance, when he came into possession of his estate, found the land worth a rental of only ten shillings ($2 50) an acre. By calling to his aid the advice of scientific men, by his intelligence and enterprise, by the application of scientific principles and the most advanced practices to the treatment of the soils, he raised his entire estate to a degree of productiveness that commanded a yearly rental of £3 10s. ($17 50) per acre. During the summer and autumn I visited numerous farms affording examples of intelligent and advanced culture: the Prince Consort farms, at Windsor; Lord Durham's estate, in Durham County; Sir Walter Trevelyan's estate, in Northumberland County; and others. The course pursued by most American farmers is entirely without system. Good prices appearing to prevail for any given production will cause our farmers to push their crop in that direction, regardless of the injuri ous effects upon their farms, and indifferent to any general results. Thus all the fluctuations of markets operate to derange their modes of husbandry, and cause extra expense in all the machinery of the farm, including labor. A defined system of husbandry would enable our farmers to control the market instead of being at the mercy of its con stant changes, and to greatly economize their expenditures, and at the same time keep up the quality of the soil. There is nothing more necessary in agricultural pursuits than some exact system, regulated by the discretion and intelligence of the farmer, guided by all the light that can be drawn from science and practice. We find in England and Scotland not only examples of ordinary farm management with careful study, but the art of feeding is unquestionably carried to a higher degree of perfection than in any other country. I was greatly surprised, when I first attended a fair of the Royal Agricultural Society, on seeing the fat cattle; but I have been still more astonished on learning the very short time it required to fatten them for the butcher. This skill is dependent on many things, such as the selection of well-bred stock, the kind of food employed, and the mode of preparing it, and particularly the kind of food given to the stock when young, and many other things, all of which we should investigate. My aim at present is, however, to examine such points as relate more directly to technical, or what is often termed practical, education for the farmer, or, more definitely, what relates to school or college education. On this point I am compelled to say that Great Britain does not afford the highest examples, either in the efforts to connect agricultural education with the universities, or to establish separate agricultural colleges and academies. The reasons for this are obvious: Most of the land being cultivated by tenant farmers, they would naturally not favor any scheme for education that would equally benefit the farming community at large, and tend to increase the productions of the land generally, thereby most likely increasing the rental they must pay. But show the individual farmer how he can increase the productions of his own farm, and thereby produce better crops than his neighbor, and he is ready enough to accept your suggestion. Agricultural education in Great Britain is based upon a purely commercial theory. The young man is sent to some advanced farmer, in a good agricultural district, to remain one, two, or three years. Thus he becomes a good farmer, but knows little else. We aim at something higher than this in the United States, and hope to make the young farmer a student, skilled in his profession by acquiring a knowledge of the sciences on which the art of agriculture is based. For this purpose we must have schools and colleges. Agriculture is at length recognized as a science, and the time has gone by when our journals call in vain for government and State aid in its advancement, and when intelligent farmers plead in vain for assistance in the establishment of agricultural schools. The ground-work of our national wealth and power is now appreciated, and a generosity that is truly munificent pervades the government and people. If, however, in the full flush of our hopes on this subject, we form a wrong conception of what we can accomplish, or if we adopt difficult or impossible measures to secure what we may legitimately aim at, the funds at our command may be squandered, and the generosity of the government, States, and individuals be discouraged. We have about fifty years of experience from which to draw lessons on the subject of agricultural schools. Failure has been a marked feature in the history of this enterprise. Let us note the bad practices which have led to partial or entire failures, and, abandoning them, study the elements of success, when success has been achieved. In a former communication I claimed that the model-farm system should be given up as a part of the machinery of agricultural schools; I wish merely to add here that I consider model farms detrimental on account of the burden they impose, in various ways, upon the institution, even in cases like that of the Cornell University, where the endowments are so great that the institution may not feel the burden of the farm. No agricultural community will award the same faith or the same credit to the experiments of a college farm that they would to those of the separate, independent farmer. Farmers in general will feel a suspicion that the college farm is backed by college funds, and that results are secured under the influence of college bias. It is not the greatest possible results that the farmer looks for alone, but the highest productiveness of his soil that can be secured at the least cost. Of course the experimental ground is not included in the term model farm. Experimental grounds-which need not be very large-are indispensable. One of the most important questions that our country is just now called upon to settle, is in relation to the value of separate agricultural schools, as compared with attaching them to universities, or making the agricultural school a department in a university. If the agricultural department is to be tacked on as a mere subordinate part, and is to be overshadowed by some other interest, I should decide in favor of separate schools, with all their disadvantages. It has too often happened that the effort to give agriculture a place in universities has |