Progress in Agriculture by Education and Government Aid

II.

IT would then seem that on the whole the people of the United States are not fully satisfied with anything that has thus far been offered them in the shape of agricultural education, and are slow to avail themselves of the benefits of the Morrill act. Yet the call for such education has been sufficiently loud and persistent to prove that there is a real want, — that “ the shoe pinches somewhere.” May we not fairly conclude that the exact spot upon which the pressure comes has not been generally identified, and hence well-advised action for relief has not been taken ?

The blame for the indifferent success that has attended their efforts has heretofore been freely and even angrily thrown upon the colleges by the vast majority of those interested; and the most modest suggestion that perhaps there is as yet not much real demand for agricultural education, properly so called, has met with derision, or denunciation as an intolerable heresy.

Some of the causes leading to this result, the roots of which lie deep in our social and educational organization, have already been alluded to. Remembering these, let us consider upon what basis a demand for professional agricultural education must needs be expected to rest.

It will be conceded that, unless the “ improvement ” of agriculture means making it more ‘profitable, it will be of little avail to preach and teach it. On any other ground, the bulk of the farming population will place and ridicule it under the head of fancy or book farming. It is obvious, then, that so long as unexhausted soils and an abundance of “fresh” land shall enable the cultivator to obtain, even by the rudest tillage, what he considers abundant returns, his interest in agricultural improvement and education will be but slight, or more sentimental than practical. He may even contend loudly for the rights of farmers’ sons to a professional education ; but he will fail to send his own sons to get it where it is offered, and employ them in taking in more fresh land for the home farm, with the view of settling each one on a “new place” hereafter. The all but universal prevalence of this feeling and practice in the newer States explains abundantly the almost necessary failure of their agricultural colleges to secure attendance upon their properly professional courses, no matter upon what system they may be organized.

Conversely, it is easy to understand the increasing interest in the teaching and practice of improved agriculture as we advance toward the older States, whence the inevitable and rapidly swelling wave of soil exhaustion sweeps westward. As the “ pinch of the shoe ” tightens, and the soil fails to respond to the ruder touches of the plow, the farmer turns for relief to the experience of the Old World, embodied in agricultural science; and when we reach the wellworn soil of New England, we find on it one of the oldest of the agricultural colleges of the United States, and perhaps the most firmly established as such in public esteem. Enthusiastically praised and loudly condemned by turns, and buffeted as severely by the changing tide of popular and legislative opinion as any of her younger sisters, the Massachusetts Agricultural College, guided by the hands of able men and steadied by the existence of an indisputable and genuine demand for the application of the higher art and science of agriculture, has become an influential factor in directing agricultural practice in New England; but even here, especially so since it has assumed the functions of an experiment station. The same cue has been vigorously taken up by Connecticut, and the services rendered by the agricultural department of Yale, under the management of Johnson and Brewer, have not only silenced the sneers often bestowed upon the comparative minuteness of their agricultural classes, but have given an impulse that has extended far southward and is bearing substantial fruits in North Carolina. It is rather singular that in this respect the great State of New York has until within a few months failed to respond adequately to the demands of the time. While the names of Caldwell, Law, and Arnold are familiar to the readers of agricultural journals in connection with much information and some investigations of high practical value, private experiment stations, established by public-spirited citizens, have anticipated Cornell in the practical recognition of the agricultural experiment station as a necessary factor in the promotion of rational agriculture.

The fruitful idea of the agricultural experiment station, where questions of local or general importance are systematically and thoroughly investigated under all the lights that science can give, and whence reliable results are directly and promptly communicated to those interested, touches the quick of the whole problem of the agricultural colleges in the United States. Their importance and usefulness in Europe in the elaboration and investigation of details is thrown in the shade by that which they should possess in a now country, where new and untouched problems of the most vital importance confront the farmer at every turn, — problems whose solution, even if covered by the general teachings of agricultural science, lie far beyond the reach of any but the trained investigator, provided with all the means and appliances that modern science can furnish. No agricultural college in the new States will need to bid for a cheap but hollow popularity by lowering its functions to that of a peasant school, to secure attendance of pupils, if it will but undertake to prove the value of the knowledge that may be acquired within its halls, by taking up and determining (not ex cathedra and dogmatically, but by patient, conscientious, and practical research) some of the many unsolved questions that the farmers of the State will bring before its instructors, so soon as it is known that such things will be attended to by them. The colleges will thus be performing the most important function within their power, under the circumstances: that of educating the fathers of the rising generation to a proper estimate of the value of the knowledge which is offered to their sons. Instead of the ceaseless wrangling as to the value and merits of any particular system of agricultural education, they will find themselves accomplishing that of whose value no one will raise a question, and securing that respect and appreciation of the use of intelligence and science in agriculture which is not only the expressed intent of the Morrill act to foster, but also the most efficacious remedy for the indisposition of our youth to engage in farming, and for the prevention of the disastrous results threatened by exhaustive culture. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of the last-named object, alone; but it will never be accomplished by mere preaching, unaccompanied by demonstrations, in the field itself, of the practical and financial feasibility and advantage of conservative and intensive culture, and of the cheapest and most available means for the maintenance or resuscitation of fertility.

But since these means and methods must vary with the climate, soils, and products of each region, the college should be in possession of accurate information on these points, or be able to obtain it. This involves the carrying out of agricultural surveys, properly so Called ; not merely geological and topographical surveys, with a few scattering notes and vapid generalities concerning the agricultural features and capabilities of a State, but an intelligent and detailed examination of each natural agricultural division or region, by persons specially qualified as agricultural experts.

Provisions for the carrying out of such investigations are on the statutebooks of most of the States, in connection with the acts for geological surveys ; but few and far between are the examples of a bona fide execution of the intent of this portion of these acts. The most recondite researches in almost every other department of science — geology, palæontology, mineralogy, ornithology, botany, ichthyology, and even conchology — have often had precedence over the most needful and elementary work bearing directly on agriculture; and the result has been painfully apparent in the premature or periodic cutting-off of state surveys, usually by the vote of country members, who failed to see the practical benefits of the expenditure incurred. It is a curious fact that in the case of some States whose geological structure is known even to minute details, he who would obtain a general idea of their agricultural features must laboriously collate scattered data contained in state or United States reports, newspaper paragraphs, the advertisements of land companies, and information obtained by correspondence. The history of the work lately done in that direction, under the auspices of the tenth census, is pregnant with instruction on this point. It is interesting to note, also, that this neglect is in most cases directly traceable to the lack of agricultural experts qualified to carry out such work ; and the inference is plain that if the agricultural colleges shall succeed in supplying this want, they will do yeoman’s service in the cause of agricultural progress.

It is, however, painfully apparent that in most cases the means now at the command of the agricultural colleges of States where the experiment stations are most needed are quite inadequate to the full requirements of such work, in addition to the maintenance of a proper corps of teachers. As to agricultural surveys, they are even more out of the question, except in so far as the instructors may gradually acquire some knowledge of the State through personal visits, specimens, and correspondence, — a tedious and slow method, especially in the larger States west of the Mississippi River. These States, moreover, have become distrustful of the management and agricultural utility of state surveys, and are slow in giving adequate pecuniary aid to them. It seems to be a case in which enlightened intervention and substantial aid from the general government would be especially well applied ; whether in the shape of additional endowments, or, in view of the uncertain policy of the several States in the matter, by the direct coöperation of the United States Department of Agriculture with the several colleges.

The act establishing the Department of Agriculture recites that its “ general design and duties shall be to acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with agriculture, in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, and to procure, propagate, and distribute among the people new and valuable seeds and plants.” A succeeding section specifies that such information shall be obtained by the commissioner “ from books and correspondence, and by practical and scientific experiments, by the collection of statistics, and by other appropriate means within his power.”

The very general wording of this act leaves to the commissioner a wide discretion in respect to the manner in which the intent of the law shall be carried into effect, and probably was intended to do so by its framers. In view of this, it is a curious fact that no qualifications as to special fitness on the part of the incumbent are prescribed ; the selection being left entirely to the good judgment of the executive.

It can hardly be surprising that wide differences of opinion as to the proper scope and mode of action should have arisen in respect to the Department of Agriculture as well as the agricultural colleges. Like the latter, that department and those placed at its head have been highly extolled on the one hand, and roundly denounced for utter inefficiency and uselessness on the other. As in the case of the colleges, the truth is doubtless to be sought between the extremes. Much of what has been objected to is and has been due to causes lying outside of the department itself, in the political atmosphere of the country, and in the immense extent of the territory over which the benefits of the department were to be spread by the aid of the small sums that have until quite recently been at its command. The inevitable great dilution of the effects produced under the circumstances could hardly fail to draw down upon the department the criticism of portions of the country, or of certain special agricultural industries, which for the time being found themselves neglected.

If we examine in detail the records of the department, as shown by the annual and special reports issued by it, we find that, so far as they go, the letter as well as the spirit of the law creating it has been fairly complied with. It is a common thing to hear these reports sneered at, and to find them in the receptacles usually provided for waste paper. But it is generally true that the sneering critics are those who would have little use for agricultural reports of any kind, and that the fault found is not as to what is in the reports, but rather what is not there ; that is, they do not happen to contain anything that applies usefully to some particular region or circumstances.

As regards the former class of objectors, its only raison d'être is the unwise mode of distributing these and other government reports, chiefly by members of Congress, to or through persons whose only interest in them is the political or personal capital they can make thereby. Hence we find the plates of cattle and other domestic or useful animals, plants, fruits, implements, etc., which form part of the agricultural reports, figuring extensively in the nurseries and other recondite places of towns and cities, while the paper-mill is often a large-scale recipient of the depleted volumes. As valuable and interesting as an agricultural report ” is a saying that finds its natural origin in the wide distribution of these documents among those having no real interest in anything of the kind. It is sufficiently obvious that the required remedy for this state of things is a greater diligence and conscientiousness on the part of members of Congress in getting these, as well as other government reports, directly into the hands of those for whom they are intended, instead of using them as lubricants for party machinery.

The class of objectors to the reports because of their omissions is more formidable, because having a real grievance resulting from the management of the work of the department. It will be useful, in considering this part of the subject, to institute comparisons with what other nations have done and are doing in the same direction. And in so doing it will be found that, while European reports are replete with accurate and laborious investigations of details of subjects long discussed, the American reports are remarkable for dealing largely with new and vitally interesting questions arising under the peculiar conditions of our agriculture; and are therefore read with interest by educated agriculturists in Europe, who are far from considering them, or the general work of the agricultural department, as being below the proper standard. Apart, then, from some weak papers, such as will occasionally find their way into much more pretentious publications, we need not be ashamed of the quality of the matter that has entered into the agricultural reports.

The adequacy of the department to the needs of the overshadowing industrial interest of the country is quite another matter, and the weakest point of the case. Its work has certainly not met the expectations entertained by the general public; and the causes assigned have been as various as the remedies proposed. Prominent among the reasonable grounds for dissatisfaction has been the management of the distribution of seeds and plants, provided for by the original act, that has absorbed a considerable share of the appropriations made by Congress, and for years has loaded down the mails with thousands of packages of seeds that, even if " valuable,” were certainly not “ new ” in any sense save that of having been grown the preceding season, and might have been purchased by any one desiring them at any country variety store, or at least of seedsmen or nurserymen, in any portion of the country to which they were adapted. This practice competed with legitimate trade, and alienated from the support of and coöperation with the department a professionally intelligent and influential class of men throughout the country. This overstepping of the proper limits and intent of the law was notoriously brought about under pressure from members of Congress who desired the seeds, like the reports, to act as lubricants toward reëlection, or other party advantages; and were especially strenuous on the subject of full sets of flower-seeds, wherewith to conciliate the good offices of the female portion of their constituencies. Under the terms of the appropriation bills, the commissioners were to a great extent helpless in preventing this stultification of the department, without incurring the risk of a defeat or serious curtailment of their general appropriation ; and while this indiscriminate, injudicious, and costly distribution has resulted in making known and bringing into use a not inconsiderable number of improved or new culture plants, the benefits derived therefrom thus far have been largely offset by the ill-will, and in part contempt, resulting from the transmission of seeds already in the general market, or obviously unadapted to the local climate. For in the impartial distribution claimed by members, cottonseed was sent to New England, and Illinois-grown seed corn and California wheat each went back to their native climes. All the commissioners have commented more or less upon the evils of this system ; and the firm stand taken by the late commissioner Le Duc on this point secured for him the respect even of those who found fault with the somewhat “ personal ” character of his administration.

Apart from this obvious and legitimate cause of complaint, the objections to the management of the department have not been very definitely formulated, and are rather to be inferred from the propositions made for changes intended to render it more efficient.

The reasonable claim that agricultural interests should have a greater influence in the councils of the nation than has heretofore been the case has led to a movement which contemplates the elevation of the commissionership of agriculture into a cabinet office. It is supposed by the advocates of this measure that a position and vote in the cabinet would insure a more serious and liberal consideration of agricultural interests by the government. But it is not clear what practical object would be accomplished by this mere change of name, or increase of conventional dignity. The time when reforms could be accomplished by such easy means is past. It is not supposable that an afflatus of greater wisdom in the management of his department would thereby inflow upon the new minister, ex officio; and it would be difficult to point, in the political history of the United States, to any case in which agricultural interests would have been sensibly benefited by a cabinet vote. If it is the influence on congressional legislation that is contemplated, a much shorter and more direct way to reach the object is to send to Congress men who shall truly represent these interests; and this it is entirely within the power of farmers to do, without asking any legislation or consent of cabinet or Congress. It is the lack of a sufficient number of such men in the legislative halls, both state and national, that keeps the agricultural interests begging at the doors of the assemblies for the recognition and aid which they ought to be able to command. What more need be said on this point, so far as Congress is concerned, than that the senate committee on agriculture of the forty-sixth Congress was composed of five lawyers and two members who might be classed as agriculturists ? — of whom, however, only one remains in the same committee of the forty-seventh session. In the House, enough just men have been found to form about one half of the corresponding committee. How can favorable and intelligent legislation on a special subject be expected of a body thus one-sidedly constituted?

Forming, as they do, a sweeping majority of the entire population, why is it that the farmers’ vote is steadily given to men whose interests are not identified with theirs, and whose personal knowledge of the needs of the agricultural industry is limited to the most general and often misty ideas ? The question has frequently been asked by the writer, as well as by others, when farmers complained of want of representation in the legislatures. The reply has not generally been clear or satisfactory, and it has mostly been left to the questioner to suggest that it is because farmers do not often find among their own number men sufficiently trained both in the science and art of agriculture and in the requirements of successful public life to hold their own, and effectually maintain the cause of their constituents, among the trained men put into the same field by other professions ; and because they find that when they do send a “ plain, practical farmer ” to Congress, or to the legislature, his vote is usually the only manner in which his influence is exerted; if, indeed, amid the complexities of amendments to amendments, he does not unconsciously vote the wrong way.

What agriculture needs is not half so much a vote in the cabinet as intelligent, professionally well-trained representatives in the legislative bodies; men qualified to be leaders in the agricultural as well as in the political field, by as thorough and liberal an education as is bestowed upon the representatives of the other professions. If the agricultural colleges should do no more than to educate leaders of this kind, they would render incalculable services to the cause.

But if professional training is needed for the representatives of agriculture in the halls of Congress, what shall we say of the qualifications that should be a prerequisite for the office of Commissioner of Agriculture ? It is not enough that he should be an amiable gentleman and friend of the President, who has been more or less engaged in farming, and has some pet ideas or experiments in his mind. In or out of the cabinet, that officer should combine a thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the science and art of agriculture with high administrative capacity, and a wide acquaintance with the varied peculiarities and needs of the immense region that constitutes his field of action. In other words, he should be as thoroughly qualified professionally as the heads of the coast and geodetic or geological surveys ; and when once found to be so, and satisfactory to the country, he should, like the officers just referred to, hold his office during “ good behavior,” and without reference to political parties or presidential terms. It is only under such conditions that men possessing the requisite qualifications will consent to hold the office, and that the benefits of an intelligent, well-considered policy, consistently carried out, can be realized. Under the system thus far prevailing, the incumbents have as a rule been removed from office just about the time when they obtained a good insight into the needs and proper management of the department, and became qualified to discharge their duties efficiently.

The definite organization of the Department of Agriculture as a technical bureau, withdrawn from ordinary political changes, is of course incompatible with the holding of a cabinet position by its head; since each President must of necessity be free to choose his advisers. By parity of reasoning it might be conversely said that the holding of a cabinet office by the head of any properly technical bureau is incompatible with the efficiency of such department, unless the actual management is substantially left to a competent and efficient subordinate. But in that case the particular uses of a mere figure-head are not apparent. The leader in fact had better be also the responsible head.

It has farther been proposed to increase the efficiency of the Department of Agriculture by enlarging its scope so as to embrace not only the properly agricultural industries, but also all industrial branches cognate with it; including even the vitally important subject of transportation. As it is difficult to see just where the intricate correlations of industries would stop, under such a point of view, this would practically amount to the establishment of a “ bureau of industries ” of immense range and cost, if so equipped as to be effective ; whereas, if it were not adequately organized and equipped, it would almost inevitably so diffuse and dilute the share given to agriculture proper as seriously to impair the modicum of efficiency and usefulness thus far attained by the department. The latter view was evidently the one taken of the matter by a committee of the National Grange that recently waited upon the present commissioner, to enter a protest against such project of enlargement ; while still, however, insisting on the advancement of the commissionership to a cabinet office. The position of the committee seems somewhat inconsistent ; for on the one hand they express the wish to see the department kept as closely and technically agricultural as possible, while on the other they desire to see that done which would render a strictly technical character almost impossible. Their action is proof conclusive, however, that the practical farmers agree with the scientific men of the United States in considering that there is ample matter within the lines of action at present prescribed for the Department of Agriculture; and that what is needed is that this wide field should be more fully and efficiently covered.

It will be proper to consider this field somewhat in detail, both as to the portions measurably covered heretofore, and those which have been slighted or omitted.

(1.) That portion of the work relating to the distribution of seeds and plants has already been commented on above. It has been enormously overdone as to quantity, improper selection, and indiscriminate distribution, and should undergo severe pruning in these respects, leaving to private enterprise whatever it is manifestly likely and adequate to accomplish. On the other hand, the department should give greatly increased attention to the introduction from foreign countries of new species and varieties of valuable culture plants adapted to the varied conditions of the different portions of the Union; and to this end it should be able to secure the assistance of consular agents abroad, not as a matter of individual good-will, but of duty imposed by the acceptance of the office, — if necessary, with such compensation as may be needful and just.

In this, as in other matters, the department should invoke the active coöperation of the agricultural colleges, both in respect to information as to local wants and adaptations, and in effecting a judicious distribution of seeds and plants.

(2.) In the collection of crop and commercial statistics and monthly reports of the condition of crops, the department has done excellent work ; but the geographical scope of that work needs to be greatly extended, the number of observers and reporters to be increased, and, above all, the publication expedited so that it shall not be behind private enterprise in point of time and accuracy, as has heretofore too often been the case. If the government printing-office cannot give precedence to these monthly reports, over other matter in hand, they should be printed elsewhere.

(3.) In the publication of treatises on agricultural subjects of immediate importance, whether newly written, translated, or simply republished, the policy of the department and the results achieved have been worthy of all praise, placing within reach of those interested the best information on the subjects selected. That this selection has not always been the best possible for the time being may, in large part at least, be ascribed to financial inability to command the services of the men needed for the tasks. Here, also, a material increase of activity is called for, so as to place the latest results of experience and investigation promptly within the reach of farmers. An annual report of agricultural progress everywhere, with references to sources, should be made a standing feature of the general report.

(4.) Of special work involving experiment and investigation, that referring to entomological subjects has been particularly useful and acceptable, especially when that portion accomplished by the entomological commission during its temporary separation from the department is counted in, as it should be. This subject is of such vital importance that a considerable increase of means for its energetic prosecution is pressingly called for.

(5.) The chemical work has been of a somewhat miscellaneous character; the means at command for the purpose, being inadequate to the prosecution of extended investigations, have been largely given to the examination of specimens sent to the department. Considering the expenditure, however, a great deal of useful work has been accomplished. The investigations of sorghums and their products, and of forage grasses, form valuable contributions to practical knowledge. It is curious that examinations of soils have been almost entirely excluded from the list of subjects, under a somewhat antiquated impression of the inutility of wasting one’s efforts on so complex and difficult a matter. This is a particularly unfortunate omission in the one country in the world where it is possible to observe soils leisurely in their original condition, as well as under the progressive phases of culture without the use of manures. It has remained for the Census Office to take the initiative in this important matter, also, in connection with the subject of cotton production. Considering that the question of soil exhaustion and maintenance of fertility by the cheapest means is fast becoming the prominent one in the States east of the Mississippi River, it can hardly be doubtful that the examination of this subject is among the most important services the agricultural department could render to practical agriculture. The problems to be solved necessarily involve such extensive comparisons, systematically made over a wide range of soils and climates, as to be out of the reach of individual or even state action, and peculiarly the province of the national Department of Agriculture. The prosecution of these and related researches will of course necessitate greatly enlarged means for chemical and physical work.

(6.) In connection with the more accurate definition of the several agricultural divisions of the country as to soils and climates, the subject of forestry should receive continual and close attention, both as regards the naturally existing forests and timber supply, and their replacement and increase by treeplanting in timberless regions. The reports on the subject made by Mr. Hough, however valuable, have but served to show the pressing need of farther work in this direction ; and here, again, the Census Office has taken a timely and most important step forward, in the investigations placed under the charge of Professor Sargent, of Harvard.

(7.) The second section of the act creating the Department of Agriculture specifies, among the means to be employed by the commissioner for the acquisition of the useful knowledge to be diffused by him, the making of “ practical and scientific experiments ; ” in other words, it charges the department with the usual and well-understood work of an agricultural experiment station. It is true that the means and appliances for carrying on such work on a scale commensurate with the wide field to be covered were exceedingly inadequate ; but it is also true that, had those placed in charge of this trust appreciated to its full extent the importance and scope of the task thus set before them, and resolutely and intelligently applied themselves to its fulfillment, an impulse might have been given that would have been felt throughout the land, and would long ago have been echoed in every State by the establishment of local stations, instead of the few that have slowly struggled into existence under the pressure of enlightened local leaders, or as step-children of agricultural colleges. As in the case of the latter themselves, the undefined dissatisfaction that has hovered round the Department of Agriculture since its inception is mainly due to the fact that it has failed to appreciate adequately, and to minister to, the strongly-felt want of the American farmer for more information directly to the point, — information bearing not merely upon theoretical and future questions, but upon problems immediately before him, and bearing within them the alternative of success or failure, crops or no crops. In a word, the department has failed to lead, and has barely even followed promptly, the movement of public opinion and demand in respect to agricultural questions, while sometimes taking vigorously in hand some single pet problem, and thereby showing what might be done from this central position with a keener professional insight, and with broader views.

That the grounds of the department at Washington are utterly inadequate to the needs of the most modest experiment station is obvious, and has been alluded to by all commissioners. The attempt made some time ago to obtain a larger plot of land for the purposes of the department, in the neighborhood of Washington, failed; and this is perhaps not to be regretted, as the tendency seemed to be to render the new domain subservient to the purposes of the vicious system of seed distribution, and the critical undertaking of a “ model farm ” of doubtful utility, especially under semipolitical management. The reported results of the tea-farm experiment in South Carolina have cast another unpropitious shadow upon such projects. Yet it is difficult to see why, with a proper professional organization independent of party management, well-conducted experimental farms, under the direction of the commissioner, should not be as possible here as they are in Europe. And it can hardly be questioned that in the remoter and climatically widely different regions, such as the Pacific coast and the “ arid ” belt lying between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, the establishment of branch bureaus, under the care of assistant commissioners, is needed for the purpose of securing to them the advantage of an adequate consideration of their peculiar interests. In most of the States, however, no new or distinct experiment stations would at present need to be provided for, since they are already organized, in a greater or less degree, in connection with the agricultural colleges, under the care of a staff of professional men interested in the most direct manner in the successful performance of such experiments as, from the nature of the case, the national department would be likely to desire in their locality. These men would, as a rule, joyfully avail themselves of the opportunities afforded them by assistance from the department, rendered under conditions similar to those usually made by the Smithsonian Institution, so noted for securing the highest grade of work at the least possible cost.

The failure to seek and secure the active cooperation of the agricultural colleges is one of the most conspicuous omissions of the Department of Agriculture. Through them its most useful influeuce could have been exerted, and its most authentic information as to facts and wants obtained. For some years, a somewhat extended account of the operations and condition of these colleges formed a part of the report of the department; but that subject has since been left to the Bureau of Education,— properly, so far as the merely educational part is concerned, but improperly as regards the ignoring of the general work they have been doing in the improvement of agricultural methods and knowledge. To speak plainly, the national Department of Agriculture seemed to act, in a measure, as though the colleges and experiment stations were not in existence. Instead of assisting them and summing up their work, it ignored them sometimes even in the matter of distribution of seeds and department reports. Its traveling employees seemed at times to keep out of the way of the existing institutions, often laboriously gathering anew information already abundantly in the possession of the latter. If this was done or omitted under the impression that the colleges or stations were indisposed to coöperate, so much the more would it have been incumbent upon an enlightened chief of such a department to seek them out, and stimulate them into active coöperation. Except in the matter of an occasional call for a convention, of which the commissioner was to be the conspicuous centre, and whose results have not been very apparent, the colleges have had but little attention from the department at Washington.

All this would be at once changed were the commissioner to become a technical expert, responsible not only officially to the government, but amenable to that rigorous and incorruptible tribunal constituted of his scientific and technical compeers, and under the standing menace of a loss of his professional reputation, which no whitewashing committees, in or out of Congress, could in any manner condone or undo. The substitution of the opinion and judgment of the republic of letters and science for that of the political one would constitute a self-executing measure of civil-service reform which would quickly sweep away the clogs and barnacles that have heretofore beset the progress of the department toward its highest usefulness. It would at once place it in a position of active and necessary reciprocal sympathy and coöperation with the agricultural colleges and experiment stations, and, through these, with the real wants of every portion of the agricultural domain. It would thus naturally and legitimately become the leading centre of agricultural information and progress, gathering up all the disconnected threads, now scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific, into a radiating net-work, conveying back and forth messages of mutual information and encouragement, by deed as well as by word.

The field is a wide and magnificent one, both as to the opportunities it affords, and as to the practical importance of the results that will reward its intelligent cultivation. It is so vast that the proposition to enlarge the scope of operations of the department by charging it with the duties of a general “ bureau of industry ” seems almost a satire upon its past history. Moreover, outside of the land office and the care of the Indian tribes (the latter, it is to be hoped, a subject soon to be eliminated from its executive responsibilities), the Department of the Interior would as naturally cover, under its general intent, a bureau of manufactures and mines as a bureau of agriculture.

If it should be contended that the carrying into effect of the system outlined in the preceding pages would necessitate too great an increase of expenditure, the answer is that if the present appropriation were to be tripled or quadrupled, it would yet bear but an insignificant proportion to the magnitude and commanding importance of the interests involved, and would be but a fraction of the millions annually wasted upon expenditures of at least doubtful general utility. The country can far better afford to do without a large proportion of the expensive party man&$x0153;uvres, investigating committees, and “ jobs ” designed for the manufacture of political capital, than to neglect any longer to foster the fundamental industry, by giving those who exercise it the fullest benefit of the lights that education and science can bestow.

Eugene W. Hilgard.