24 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ment, a " Department of Agriculture," the management of which they 

 placed in the hands of a Commissioner of Agriculture, whose general 

 duties, as defined by the law, are to acqure and diffuse among the people 

 of the United States useful information on subjects connected with agri- 

 culture, in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, to 

 make and record practical and scientific experiments, to collect agricul- 

 tural statistics, and annually to report his transactions to the President 

 and to Congress. Our own Legislature at its last session, following the 

 worthy example, by law established the " State Board of Agriculture/' 

 and made it a part of their duties to use all suitable means to collect 

 and diffuse all classes of information calculated to aid in the develop-, 

 ment of the agricultural, mineral, mechanical, and manufacturing re- 

 sources of the State, and report biennially to the Governor an account 

 of its transactions — the facts elicited, statistics collected, and information 

 gained on the subjects for which it exists. 



The present Board, through their Secretary, have labored assiduously 

 for the accomplishment of these objects ; but exj^erience has' taught them 

 that the means at their disposal are inadequate to the demand made 

 upon them, and the law should be so changed as to supply these means. 

 By the present and very imperfect law, the District and County Asses- 

 sors are required to. report annually agricultural, mineral, and manufac- 

 turing statistics to the Surveyor-General, and it is made the duty of that 

 officer to lay this information before the Governor. This law was passed 

 long before the organization of this Department, and it is respectfully 

 suggested that now the proper medium for such information is the State 

 Board of Agriculture, and such, we believe, was the intention of the 

 Legislature, but, from ovei'sight, they neglected to provide the machi- 

 nery by which to accomplish the end. The Board are charged by law 

 with the performance of very important duties; then why not place in 

 their hands the means for the successful performance of these duties? 

 The entire want of statistical reports from many counties, and the im- 

 perfect and unreliable character of those from many others, as shown 

 by the report of the Surveyor-General, (and we do not attribute any of 

 these deficiencies to that officer,) proves the necessity of a radical change 

 in the law. 



Let the Legislature require, by enactment, the District and County 

 Assessors to make, under oath, from actual canvass, and not from guess- 

 work or idle estimation, their agricultural and other statistical reports 

 to this Department, and prohibit the Supervisors of the several counties 

 from auditing or paying the salaries of the Assessors until their duties 

 shall have been carefully and faithfully performed, and the Assessor 

 shall have produced the receipt of the Secretary of this Board to that 

 effect. 



Under the operation of a law such as is above indicated, we submit 

 that the State of California would have the credit of establishing a sj^s- 

 tem for the collection and diffusion of important statistical information un- 

 equalled by any other State in the Union, and she would then justly de- 

 serve the high compliment lately paid her by the Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture, when, in his report to Congress, he says : " California exhibits a 

 juster regard for statistical information than any other State." It is 

 also submitted that the adoption of such a system would possess the ad- 

 vantage of supplying the State Government with an annual correct and 

 complete census at a mere nominal extra expense, for the additional 

 time required by the Assessor, while taking the assessment, to perform 



