A REVIEW BY THE EDITOR 



OF THE 



^Progress rato ^rosptds of Agriculture. 



Nevee, in the history of our country, has Agriculture, in all its great and varied depart- 

 ments, presented so prosperous and promising a condition as at the close of the year 1855. 

 The season that has passed, in striking contrast with that 'which immediately preceded it, 

 has proved fruitful to an extraordinary degree, and the careful estimates of the gathered 

 crops almost exceed belief: Indian corn, ten hundred millions of bushels; wheat, from one 

 hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty millions ; oats, four hundred millions ; rye and 

 other grains, one hundred millions ; and cotton, with a crop undoubtedly smaller than that of 

 some former years, not less than three million two hundred thousand bales, or, estimating 

 four hundred pounds to the bale, one billion two hundred and eighty millions of pounds. 



With this increase in material prosperity, a marked progress has also been made in all that 

 pertains to agriculture, considered as a science and an art — in the improvement and perfec- 

 tion of tools, implements, and processes — in the increase and improvement of agricultural 

 literature — in the introduction and propagation of new and valuable animals and plants — in 

 the increased patronage of the National and State governments — and in the more widely ex- 

 tended means and opportunities for elementary agricultural education. 



Nor has this progress and improvement been confined to the United States. In Great 

 Britain, the examples and teachings of Mechi, Wilkins, Lawes, and Gilbert, the late Mr. 

 Pusey, Prof. Way, of the Royal Agricultural Society, Prof. Anderson, of the Highland Agri- 

 cultural Society of Scotland, and many other practical, far-seeing men, are producing most 

 beneficial results. Their efforts are also indirectly seconded by the manufacturers, as in the 

 case of Mr. Salt, who has introduced the Alpaca sheep and Angora goats, and by others who 

 utilize the refuse of their vast manufacturing establishments for fertilizers; or by their 

 statesmen, as in the case of Lord Clarendon, who, while Foreign Secretary, did much, in 

 virtue of his position, to facilitate the introduction of foreign trees and fruit. In France, 

 under the direction of St. Hilaire and the patronage of government, the Society for the In- 

 troduction and Acclimation of Useful Foreign Domestic Animals and Plants, are active and 

 strenuous in their efforts. Under the direction also of government, aided by private indivi- 

 duals, the streams and lakes of the empire are becoming rapidly stocked with a profusion of 

 fish, propagated by artificial means. American agricultural implements — partially through 

 the results of the Great Exhibition of Paris, partially through an increased information — are 

 finding a ready market in France, and in Vienna a warehouse for their exclusive sale has 

 been established. Lastly, but not least, it must be recorded that Algeria, best known to 

 American readers by its former piracy and white slavery, competed honorably with the 

 United States at the Paris Exhibition in, reaping machines ; that the National Agricultural 

 Society of the Sandwich Islands, during the past year, has issued its third annual report and 

 awarded six hundred dollars in prizes, and that Liberia has established a model farm and 

 plantation. 



Let us, however, examine in detail some of the varied and interesting incidents that have 

 been recorded during the years 1854-55: 



As regards agricultural education, many important steps and prosperous beginnings have 

 been made during the past year in the United States. In Georgia, through the munificence 

 of the late Dr. William Terrell, the University of that State has been endowed with $20,000 



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