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IV. Characteristic vegetation of the banks of the Youkon River, Alaska......

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V. Characteristic vegetation of the Aleutian district, Alaska..

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VI. Characteristic vegetation of the Sitkan district, Alaska..

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REPORT

OF THE

COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

Washington, D. C., November 30, 1868.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the seventh annual report of the Commissioner of Agriculture. The interests confided to this depart ment are those of an industrial class more numerous than any other, and upon whose labors, under the guidance and with the blessing of a Power that rules the year, depend the well-being and the very existence of the human family. The sphere of its operations is a territory unsurpassed for fertility of soil, and a climate favorable to the health and comfort of the husbandman, and the fruitfulness of his toil. Its marvellous breadth of area invites the toiling millions of the world, offering to each family a farm and a home, with the added boon of citizenship, and asking in payment only a guarantee of improvement, and a share in the production of the bread of a nation. It is the function of this department to aid this great foundation interest in all legislation affecting it, in the diffusion of practical information concerning it, and in the dissemination and testing of rare and untried plants of other countries, that promise to enrich its store of production. This work involves a familiarity with the latest discoveries of the natural sciences and a knowledge of the technicalities of many arts, with a fund of practical knowledge and sturdy sense that intuitively judges aright in all the actualities of every-day life. If its true object and proper function are understood, a work of great magnitude and importance is opened, requiring a variety of skilled official labor, and special training, in preparation for it. A beginning has been made, small it may be, but foreshadowing, it is believed, a future fraught with a good to agriculture and to the country. Difficulties have been encountered, and discouragements met, but the obstacles are disappearing and shadows lightening, and the way is open for rapid progress and a successful career.

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

The industrial colleges now springing into being throughout the northern and western States, though various in character and aims, and at present in the weakness and inefficiency of their infancy, are destined

to be powerful coadjutors in the legitimate work of this department. Already has the discussion attendant upon their organization elicited inquiry, corrected prejudices, diffused information, and aroused enthu siasm for a practical education, which cannot fail to accomplish good results. They are calling forth from the ranks of the professions, and of educated, practical farmers, earnest men of enlarged views, and training them for the position of teachers in these institutions, thus opening spheres of usefulness to which schoolmen have hitherto been strangers, and eventually making a new era in the education of the world. The material for these professorships is yet in the rough, and must be fitted and polished in the institutions themselves; and as this is a progressive work, the country must be patient, not expecting the culmination of a century of progress in a moment of time.

SYSTEMATIC AGRICULTURE.

Hitherto this country has been characterized by random farming, for immediate results, with no reference to future advantages, and no persistent following of any prescribed course. It has been a speculative business, with a constant endeavor to overreach the soil, even at the risk of its bankruptcy. Cotton, wheat, wool, hops, and other products have been, either periodically or locally, the innocent causes of unnatural excitements, and it may be long ere cool reason shall hold undisturbed sway among our husbandmen; but there are evidences that more stable views and more systematic practices are beginning to prevail. In the central settlements of the west, farm animals, the basis of systematic farming, are held in higher esteem than formerly, and a preparation at least is made for some simple rotation of crops. More stability exists, under adversity, as in the case of wool-growers, many of whom, farseeing and wise, are confident of future profit in the midst of present discouragement. There is a disposition in the south to produce their own bread and meat, and hold their cotton as a surplus, bearing a better price when the quantity does not suffice to glut the market. These and many other signs of thoughtfulness and growing wisdom are apparent.

SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE.

It is gratifying to observe the evidences of vitality in southern agriculture, which is progressively and successfully marshalling the forces. of recuperation, and gradually dispelling the despondency resulting from the losses of civil war, the change in the labor system, the disruption of families and the impoverishment of estates. This despondency, together with political disappointments, led to chimerical plans for settlements in Brazil, in Central America, in Mexico, and even in the northern and northwestern States. I have regretted and combatted, in personal intercourse and correspondence, this morbid tendency to expatriation, or to distant removal, as an aggravation of the evils of poverty

and discontent, rather than their cure. It is a self-evident proposition that forced sales of remnants of property, mostly real estate, at a place and time in which few purchasers have disposition or ability to make investments, are not favorable to a conservation of reduced estates; and the expenses of removal would leave emigrants in a condition of more abject poverty, among strangers, and surrounded by unfamiliar circumstances and occupations. There is abundant evidence of gradual tranquillization of discordant social and business elements, and an increasing hopefulness and energy in industrial effort. An impetus has been given to business by the introduction of northern capital; and in the future more rapid progress may be expected from the same cause. Money, population, and skill in special industries, are the requisites for success in developing the resources and extending and perfecting the agriculture of the South.

In view of all the circumstances affecting cotton culture, it may be deemed a remarkable fact that the yield has attained an equality with that of 1850, and is half as great as the excessive product of 1859 and 1860, which glutted the markets of the world, and would have caused a discouraging depression in prices but for the cessation of cotton production in the years that followed. The cash receipts for the crop of 1867 were larger than these of 1859, though of less actual value as reckoned in a depreciated currency.

The sugar interest is rapidly attaining prominence, the product having doubled in the last two years. The total product of rice is also increasing.

CANADIAN RECIPROCITY.

The farmers of the country, while enduring the necessary burden of internal revenue taxation, and submitting cheerfully to imposts upon all foreign products consumed by them, will enter a vigorous protest against any proposition for the renewal of the abrogated reciprocity treaty, or any arrangement admitting untaxed and low-priced Canadian productions customs free, or at a lower rate of duty than is provided in existing laws regulating the tariff upon similar imports from other nationalities. They justly demand equality in taxation and in exemption from its burdens; they ask no favors for a class pre-eminent in numbers that they would not accord to one of the smallest in the nation, and properly regard with jealousy any assumption of claims for special privileges for the few at the expense of the many. They cannot see the justice of subjecting farmers to a direct and ruinous competition in wheat, beef, wool, and all products of the farm, along a line of thousands of miles in extent, for the benefit of foreigners who bear none of our burdens, and for the enrichment of a few of our citizens who stand in a necessary yet unproductive position between the producer and consumer. Such treaty of reciprocity would bear with peculiar hardship upon the wool. growing interest, and especially upon the production of combing-wool,

the long wool of Canada, a fiber in growing demand, which our farmers can readily supply, and at the same time furnish the markets with mutton of superior quality, if no unjust discrimination is permitted in the practical working of the wool tariff. Whatever settlement of questions of navigation or fisheries may be desirable, it is hoped that no advantages may be secured by concessions prejudicial to the farming interest.

INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES.

A system of international agricultural exchanges has been established with many of the governments of Europe, Asia, and South America, already including Austria, Prussia, China, Japan, India, Guatemala and British Honduras. Arrangements have also been made for valuable exchanges of rare seeds, plants, trees, and various products of agriculture, with the botanical gardens of Kew, in England, and Melbourne, in Australia; the India museum, in London; the Cape of Good Hope Agricultural Society; the botanical department of the British museum; the commissioner of patents of the Argentine Republic, and the Central Agronomical Society of the Grand Duchy of Posen. Correspondence, in initiating this measure, has elicited expressions of the utmost cordiality and a cheerful readiness for zealous co-operation. The arrange ment with Doctor Forbes, of the India museum in London, contem plates a general exchange of the agricultural products of the United States for those of India. He proposes that similar specimens shall bear the same numbers, in the India museum, in London, in that of this department, and in the local museums of India, for the purpose of facilitating reference at London, India, or in the United States, or any other country to which similar collections may be sent. Among the samples are nearly one thousand specimens of the textile fibers of India. It is my design to extend and complete this system of exchange, which promises valuable results to agriculture, and incidentally to manufactures and commerce.

DISEASES OF FARM STOCK.

The prevalence of fatal maladies among all varieties of farm animals, resulting in the annual loss of not less than fifty million dollars, demands the prompt attention of this department, the vigilance of the agricultural associations, and national and State legislation. The past year has not been one of peculiar misfortune in this respect, except in the dissemination of the splenic fever, communicated by Texas cattle; yet, horses, mules, sheep, and swine have all suffered from the local prevalence of malignant forms of disease, against which little veterinary skill is opposed, and little more than empiricism and superstitious folly is practiced. A disease may suddenly decimate the cattle or horses of a neighborhood, the only popular knowledge of which is the statement that it is a murrain or distemper. A disease exists locally in several of the south

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