Xxviii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



his power to produce more largely in the future by the im- 

 provement of the soil. Every bushel of wheat, corn, or other 

 grain ; every pound of wool, mutton or beef, produced on the 

 farm, is so much added outright to the wealth of the State ; 

 and ever}^ dollar added to the value of an acre of land by the 

 skill of the farmer, increases the income of the State one-half 

 of one per cent, in the form of taxes. In short, it may be 

 said that agriculture is the only source of primary creative 

 production ; for agriculture not only creates products, and, 

 therefore, values, but if intelligently and skilfully carried on 

 its productive capacit}^ is increased even during the exercise 

 of its creative power — something which cannot be said of 

 any other productive industry, for while the practice of the 

 mechanic arts and mining enhance the value of products, they 

 cannot create them. If skill and persistency are employed in 

 working a quarry, the sooner its value is exhausted ; if a 

 machine is run with greater intensity its productive capacity 

 is impaired. Taken in its broadest sense, agriculture feeds 

 and clothes the world, and yet its productive power is con- 

 stantly increasing. In the apt words of Mr. Thomas P. 

 Janes, the distinguished Commissioner of Agriculture for 

 the State of Georgia, in his Report for the present year : the 

 handmaids of agriculture, "science and mechanics, are yearly 

 becoming more subservient to its commands. Civilized States 

 are recognizing its importance to man, and realizing the neces- 

 sity of extending the fostering care of their organized power 

 to its advancement and development. Recognizing it as the 

 fundamental source of their wealth, and that upon the knowl- 

 edge and skill of its votaries depend the increase of its pro- 

 ductive power, departments, schools, colleges and experi- 

 mental stations have been established for its encouragement. 

 Under such fostering care it is no longer regarded as an art 

 controlled by mere empiricism, but has taken its proper 

 status in the estimation of men and nations as a science, to 

 which other branches of science are made tributary. Geology, 

 botan}^ meteorology, physiology, chemistry, mechanics, 

 zoologj^, entomology — all the natural sciences which existed 



