No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 377 



bacteria air, and what tlicy arc doing in agriculture and in the other 

 affairs of life. I could continue and say: Who understood what it is 

 to have a Babcock milk test 50 years ago? Who understood what 

 it is to separate milk and cream mechanically, and who knew 50 

 years ago about cutting, threshing and cleaning grain at a single 

 operation out in the field as is done in many parts of our country 

 to-day? Fifty years ago the stroke of the flail was heard through 

 the valleys of Pennsylvania all winter, and the sound of the whet- 

 stone sharpening the scythe was heard in every harvest field in the 

 land. It W'ould have been utterly impossible 40 years ago to have 

 held such a meeting as this which we now hold, with such discus- 

 sions as we have, and will have, here to-day. You see that we have 

 made this progress within so few years, and have lived through the 

 centuries before up to 1850 with such a record as a |73.00 implement 

 outfit for a 200-acre farm. Our progress has come through means 

 that are as natural, and that work as certainly as any of the forces 

 that are in operation in other affairs. It is clear that it did not come 

 through the efforts of the so-called practical men, who were engaged 

 in practical agriculture. Practical men as good as we are had been 

 living in the world, and been engaged in agriculture for thousands 

 of years, and yet it has only been within the last 50, 40 and 30 years, 

 that progress w'orthy of the name has occurred. If our progress 

 then did not come through the efforts of so-called practical men, 

 how did it come? 



Dr. Atherton spoke of an act of Congress that went into opera- 

 tion on the 2d dav of Julv, 1862. I, too, w^ant to call vour attention 

 to that same month of July in 1862. It marks an epoch in the 

 history of agriculture of the world. 



On the 1st day of July, 1862, there was an institution organized 

 that has had a wonderful influence upon the agriculture of this 

 country and its development since. I refer to the Department of 

 Agriculture that is now organized at Washington, the extent and 

 value of which many even of our most thoughtful and intelligent 

 farmers do not clearly understand. In December, 1861, the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture at Washington had just nine members in its 

 working force. It then was a small and unimportant Division in 

 the Department of the Interior. To-day the last report shows that 

 the Department of Agriculture has a working force of 3,789 men, 

 all engaged in forwarding the interests of farming people in this 

 country. Of these 3,789 men, over 2,000 are trained scientists, scien- 

 tific investigators, or assistants in scientific investigations, giving 

 their entire attention to scientific work for the development of agri 

 culture both in this and other lands. There is no such university 

 for scientific research of like extent in any other country, and it is 

 oflScered by men, many of whom, have no superiors in their several 

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