RELATION OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH TO ECONOMIC PROBLEMS. 55 



proportion of these from the new States and Territories, which have not yet developed 

 institutions of learning of their own, is the largest. An intelligent question from a 

 farmer on the frontier receives as much attention as a communication from a royal 

 academy of sciences, and often takes more time for the preparation of the reply. 



One source of this public confidence is the fullness of the annual reports of the 

 several bureaus and the extent of the editions for general distribution. These 

 reports contain not only the results of the year's work, but appendices which illus- 

 trate the methods of work, and then, taking the reader into confidence, show him the 

 manner in which conclusions are reached. It would be a national misfortune if the 

 protests of specialists and book-dealers were to result in reducing the editions of these 

 reports. The 500,000 reports annually sent out from the Department of Agriculture 

 are none too many, and the waste of an inconsiderable percentage of them is of no 

 moment when the enlightening effect of the whole is properly estimated. 



The government of the United States does nothing for our manufacturing 

 interests, save to collect their statistics, protect them against foreign competition, and 

 gather information about foreign markets through the consular system and the 

 Bureau of American Republics. It has however provided for the primary indus- 

 tries — agriculture, mining, and fisheries — with great liberality and with an amount 

 of intelligence which is even more noteworthy. 



The interests of agriculture are attended to by a bureau which, after a consistent 

 and wholesome growth of three decades, has attained to the rank of a Department, 

 and which receives for the current year an appropriation of three millions of dollars. 

 The plan of this Department is to place at the disposal of the farmer all the results 

 of the sciences, and when necessary to apply them for his benefit, as is done in the 

 Weather Bureau. It makes new discoveries and shows how old ones shall be applied, 

 and it publishes information broadcast throughout the land. In further prosecution 

 of its plans the government aids each State government in maintaining a local center 

 of investigation and education, appropriating for this purpose about seven hundred 

 thousand dollars for the current year, which is supplemented by an equal or greater 

 annual expenditure on the part of the several State governments. 



For the benefit of the mines we have the Geological Survey, the history of which 

 extends over a period of nearly twenty-five years, during which it has made a 

 consistent and healthy growth. Its work is of the utmost importance, not only to the 

 mining industries but to agriculture as well — an importance which will be much 

 greater in the years to come, when the surface supplies shall have become depleted. 

 In this work, too, the general government is seconded by the State governments, 

 many of which have local agencies of their own. With comparatively few exceptions, 

 all the scientific geologists of the country are engaged in the official surveys, either 

 of the government or of the States. 



Ten years ago, in a paper upon "The Status of the U. S. Fish Commission in 1883," 

 I took occasion to quote the opinions of scientific experts in all parts of the world, in 

 criticism and commendation of the manner in which the problems of fish-culture were 

 treated, as illustrated at the International Fisheries Exhibition in London. The 

 displays of the United States in Berlin in 1880, and in London in 1883, resulted in a 

 complete change of public policy throughout Europe; for on those occasions the world 

 saw demonstrated the essential distinction between private and public fish-culture. 

 Private fish-culture is, like poultry-raising, a field for individual effort with private 



