VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 39 



AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS DURING THE LAST 



THREE DECADES. 



By Col. J. H. Brigham, Asst. Sec'y, Dept. Agri. U. S. 

 Delivered at Cavendish; Januarv 23. 



Within the last twenty or thirty years great progress has 

 been made in the agriculture of this country, both in science 

 and practice. To this advancement the Department of Agri- 

 culture has contributed in no small degree. Before the civil 

 war the work of the government in aid of agriculture was 

 very limited, occupying a small space in the Department of 

 the Interior. In 1862 Congress passed a bill creating an agri- 

 cultural department as an independent organization. The to- 

 tal annual expenditure for maintaining the Department at 

 that time did not exceed $20,000. To-day it employs nearly 

 3000 persons and requires an appropriation of more than $3,- 

 000,000 annually. 



It was elevated to an executive department in 1889, when 

 its work had grown into thirteen divisions. At present there 

 are twenty divisions, including the Weather Bureau, which 

 was transferred from the War Department to the Department 

 of Agriculture in 1891. 



BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



The advancement of agriculture is specially shown in 

 the progress made in checking and eradicating contagious 

 diseases among our farm animals and in the discovery of rem- 

 edies therefor. When in 1894 the cattle raisers of the country, 

 having become alarmed over the rapid spread of pleuro-pneu- 

 monia and Texas fever, demanded that some steps be taken 

 by the Government, Congress passed a bill creating the Bu- 

 reau of Animal Industry. The Bureau began its work by the 

 study of means and methods for eradicating the disease. 

 The "stamping-out process" was decided upon as the most 

 efficacious, and on March 25, 1892, the last case disappeared 

 from the United States. Not a single case has since been re- 

 ported. Texas fever has been assiduouslv studied and while 

 no remedy has been found, partial success has been accom- 

 plished by dipping cattle to destroy ticks, and an effective 

 quarantine has been established which separates the infected 

 areas from non-infected areas. Similar regulations for re- 

 stricting the spread of sheep scab have been established. 



No diseases among - domestic animals have worked such 

 havoc as hog cholera and swine plague. It is estimated that 

 Iowa alone suffers to the extent of [$15,000,000 annually. 



