in science and education but also of a great army of practical farmers, to whom it has already brought substantial benefits. As the Secretary of Agriculture has justly said: "Of all the scientific enterprises which the Government has undertaken, scarcely any other has impressed its value upon the people and their representatives in the State and national legislatures so speedily and so strongly as this. The rapid growth of an enterprise for elevating agriculture by the aid of science, its espousal by the United States Government, its development to its present dimensions in the short period of fourteen years, and, finally, the favor with which it is received by the public at large, are a striking illustration of the appreciation on the part of the American people of the wisdom and the usefulness of calling the highest science to the aid of the arts and industries of life. "The present is an auspicious time for this undertaking. In the history of no nation before has there been such a thirst for knowledge on the part of the great masses of the people, such high and just appreciation of its value, and such wide-reaching. successful, and popular schemes for self-education; no other nation has so large a body of farmers of high intelligence; never before has the great agricultural public been so willing and indeed so anxious to receive with respect and use with intelligence the information which science offers; never before has science had so much to give. The prospects, then, for this, the largest scientific enterprise in behalf of agriculture that any government has undertaken, are full of promise." HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. The establishment of a National Board of Agriculture was one of the measures which President Washington strongly urged upon the attention of Congress. The propriety of giving national aid to agriculture was considered by committees of both Houses of Congress in those early days, but the indifference of the farmers and constitutional objections prevented any legislative action. During the administration of John Quincy Adams instructions were given to the consuls of the United States in various quarters of the world to send to the Department of State rare seeds and plants for distribution, and about the same time a botanical garden was established at Washington. These measures proved to be the germs from which have grown the United States Department of Agriculture. In the distribution of business to the several Departments of the Government organized shortly after the adoption of the Federal Constitution a century ago, it fell to the lot of the Department of State to have the principal charge of the issuing of patents, though for several years the Secretary of War and the Attorney-General were associated with the Secretary of State to form what may be called a Commission of Patents. For a quarter of a century the work of the Patent Office so called was so comparatively insignificant that the clerks employed in this office apparently had time for the discharge of other duties, and such small receipts and distributions of seeds as were actually made under the directions to the consuls were supervised by the Patent Office. Thus it came to pass, that when, on the 4th of July, 1836, the Patent Office was made a separate bureau of the Government. and Hon. Henry L. Ellsworth, of Connecticut, was appointed first Commissioner of Patents, this new official conceived the idea that it came within the proper scope o e of his office to help the farmers of the country by distributing seeds and plants. Mr. Ellsworth had been a practical farmer in Connecticut, and, as Indian Commissioner, had traveled far to the West, had been greatly impressed by the fertility of the vast prairies, and was deeply interested in projects for the opening of these lands to settle ment. He also realized the importance of the invention of improved agricultural implements, which were then beginning to attract public attention, and believed that great benefit might result "from the establishment of a regular system for the selection and distribution of grains and seeds of the choicest varieties for agricul tural purposes." |