Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1885 — AGRICULTURAL MAHERS. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL MAHERS.

Synopsis of the Annual Report of. Commissioner? Colman. rw Commissioner Colman, of the Agricultural Bureau, in his annual report, says the year which opened in "gloom, threatening the destruction of winter crops by the severity of the temperature, is closing with bright prospects of abundance for man and beast, produced at a cost which is not a burden to the producer and to be sold at a price which is not a barrier to the poor consumer. For many years, he says, it has become more and more apparent that one great need of the agricultural interests of the United States is a better understanding and a more intimate relation between the several agricultural and experiment stations, and a more practical c.o-operation between these institutions and the Department of Agriculture. These colleges were endowed by Congress. They are now separately carrying on experiments at an expense of time and means, and yet ‘without any central head through which to report and compare results with each other. He submits that the department should have full authority and ample means to avail itself of the' peculiar advantages offered by those endowed institutions in order to test, in a manner and on a scale sufficient to determine all questionable points, the adaptability of new and rare seeds to the various sections of our country. Of the Bureau of Animal Industry he says: “The law establishing flie bureau does not authorize the slaughter of animals affected with contagious diseases, and it is impossible for the department to maintain under it an effectual quarantine. The characteristics of pleura-pneumonia make it a difficult disease to extirpate except by the slaughter of all affected animals and the slaughter or quarantine of all that have been exposed.” He describes the serious effect upon our foreign trade in live stock resulting from the existence of contagious diseases among cattle, sheep and swine, and says that the restrictions upon our interstate commerce from the same cause have been a .very great burden, and that the restriction in value of cattle in the affected States has been enormous. Of the work of the Division of Chemistry hev says: “The investigation of the influence of climate and soil in the composition of cereals has progressed far enough to scientifically determine what parts of the country prodwee the best cereals.” The experiments are described which were undertaken with a purpose to check the present enormous waste of sugar, fully one-half, in the milling process, and with highly gratifying results. Thfe division has also begun an important series of investigations upon food adulteration. The work has so far been chiefly with butter and honey, but it is proposed, to extend it until uniform methods of examination and standards of comparison are established. In the Entomological Division the work has greatly-increased during the year, and Prof. Biley considers that under conditions the most favorable to grasshopper increase the injury can never be as widespread as it has been in the past, owing to the advance and increase in settlement in the Northwest.

The annual report of Mr. Dodge, the statistician of the department, for the present year, contains, the Commissioner says, a review of the course, of agricultural production during fifteen years, which showed ah estimated increase in corn of 37,000,000 acres, or 80 per cent; in oats, of 13,000,000 acres, or 142 per cent.; in all cereals taken together, 67,000,000 acres, or 07 per cent. The enlargement of the wheat area was extraordinary during the period of partial failure qf the crops .of Western Europe; the extension of the breadth in maize was aided by the reserve of the foreign trade in beeves and fresh meats and by the sudden enlargement of exports of pork products induced by the cheapness of corn, and the cultivation of oats has received special impetus from the seeding of rust-preof varieties in the South and from the necessity of less heating feed for horses than a too exclusive maize ration. The increase -from 69,000,000 acres of cereals in 1870 —a breadth nearly equal to the superficial area of Missouri and Ohio—to 136,000,000 acres, au increase of 67,000,000 acres since 1870, means the seeding and harvesting of an additional area equal to the entire surface of lowa and[ North Carolina. The average estimated product of the principal food crops of the last five years is compared with the average of the ten years preceding, from 1870 to 1879, inclusive, showing an enormous annual increase in the aggregate as well as per acre. The average yield of com per acre has been 23.9 bushels, against 27.1 for the preceding period; the average value has therefore been higher, 44.7 cents per bushel, instead of 42.6, aud the average value of an acre $10.67 instead of $11.54. The average yields of wheat in the two periods nearly identical, 12.3 and 12.4 bushels, rrespectively, but the price has averaged. 90.1 cents instead of 104.9, the demand not being equal to the supply. There is perhaps, no subject in which the department can be used to greater benefit than in its attention to forestry interests; and, considering the vast importance to the nation of a proper investigation of the subject, no branch has been more poorly endowed by. Congress. Efforts should be made at once to arouse and enlighten the people to the dangers which threaten through the destruction of the forests. “Arbor days” should be instituted in all the States, the science of forestry should be taught in schools, and the organization of local and State forestry societies should be encouraged. The Commissioner concludes his report with reference to the usefulness and growing importance of the department.