FAKMERS' INSTITUTES. 285 



five to tcTi tlio second, •\vlicii it is plowed up and put in to other crops, to again 

 bo seeded. The cost i)er acre is from ^i;:^ to $14, and 25 cents per pound for 

 distilling. 



The cultivation of spearmint is the same as peppermint, and pennyroyal and 

 tansy are similar, except it is planted in hills six inches apart in the row. 

 Wormwood is raised from the seed and transplanted in rows, six inches apart 

 in the row, when its after-culture is nearly the same as the foregoing, except it 

 will bring several crops to one planting. The demand for the last four named 

 oils is very limited. Wormwood a few years ago brought ten dollars a pound, 

 ■when three or four farmers went to raising it and brought it down to one dollar. 



I have been thus particular in describing the raising of essential oils because 

 its production merits it, for we see by the report of the statistician of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture for 187G that the exports of hogs and their products have 

 trebled from ]870 to 1875 and the exports of wheat have doubled in the same 

 time and has quadrupled since 1850, and the export of corn has doubled from 

 1870 to 1875, and yet we have a surplus on hand of all these products, and if 

 we increase their production for the next twenty years as much as we have for 

 the last twenty it needs no prophetic vision to see that we shall not be able to 

 llnd a market for them. With these facts in view it becomes our duty to 

 encourage every industry that will diminish their volume, at least until they 

 bring a price that will pay a fair profit for their production. 



And for the introduction of new industries, the department of agriculture 

 is of vast importance to us, yet our friends in congress give them a very meagre 

 support. The provision for statistical investigation in 1876 was only ten 

 thousand dollars, a sum not sufficient for the salaries of a meagre clerical force 

 for compilation in the office, when $50,000 was necessary properly to supplement 

 and complete the gratuitous work of the statistical corps, worth three times 

 that amount. But "there is no lack of provision for investigation in aid of other 

 industries. For the same year there was 8140,000 appropriated for a geological 

 exploration of the llocky Mountains. In the same year the appropriation for 

 the observation and report of storms was $470,000, for the benefit of commerce." 

 Yet notwithstanding the meagre support congress gives, with the gratuitous 

 work the people have given it, they have been able to do a great deal of good 

 in the way of disseminating seeds and introducing new industries, the most 

 important of which is jute culture, the possibilities of which are immense. 

 Single or mixed it enters into a thousand articles of commerce. Professor 

 AVatterhouse, in speaking of its culture and manufacture, says: '* Millions of 

 dollars are now annually paid to foreigners for labor that ought to be performed 

 by Americans. We are heedless of the lessons of public economy. A diversity 

 of employment and an industrial independence of other countries will most 

 efficiently promote the welfare of our own people. It is the true policy of the 

 United States to introduce and naturalize the industries of the old world and 

 to foster the common wealth of the nation by paying to American handicraft 

 the millions which are now the rich reward of European skill, then the new 

 enterprises giving employment to home labor and activity to domestic capital will 

 quicken the revival of our languishing industries and aid in regaining our ma- 

 terial prosperity and enricli the nation by the economy of millions which have 

 heretofore been paid to foreign lands." 



Mr. E. K. Willard, of White Pigeon, read the following essay on 



