448 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



one Whole herds had to be slaughtered. Of course, great opposition 

 was raised to such action — but the heroic course was the only safe way to 

 proceed. Millions of dollars were required to pay for slaughtered herds, 

 but Congress freely made the proper appropriations, and this dread dis- 

 ease was practically eliminated from this country during his administra- 

 tion. 



The great fruit growing interests of the nation had been overlooked 

 by the department, and one of his first acts was to take them under con- 

 sideration, and establish a division of Pomology to look after and en- 

 courage the interests of the fruit growers in all parts of the United 

 States. It has become one of the leading divisions of the department. 



Another of the important divisions established was that of Vege- 

 table Pathology. Vegetable life is fully as subject to disease as animal 

 life. Mildews, blights, rusts, smuts, moulds destroy millions of dollars' 

 worth of crops annually, and to guard against them, and to give remedies 

 for them, and to recommend such courses of cultivation as to avoid them, 

 were the objects of Mr. Colman in starting this division. 



The division of Ornithology and Mammalogy was also established 

 by him in order to secure information as to which varieties of birds and 

 smaller animals as gophers, moles, minks, skunks, field mice, etc., were 

 friends, and which were enemies to the farmer and how their depreda- 

 tions might be prevented. 



The division of the United States Experiment Stations was likewise 

 established by him to take advantage of and utilize the vast fund of in- 

 formation to be secured at the various experiment stations of the dif- 

 ferent states of the Union, so as to make it available to those most need- 

 ing it. 



But it was not only in establishing new divisions, but in greatly ex- 

 tending the scope of those that existed that commended his work to 

 Congress and to the active workers in the cause of agricultural progress. 

 It was this great advancement that secured the confidence of the mem- 

 bers of Congress and caused them to aid in the rapid elevation of the 

 department. 



It was, however, the establishment of the experiment stations 

 throughout the states of the Union, and the elevation of the department 

 as one of the great executive departments of the government, during his 

 administration, and his appointment as the first Secretary of Agriculture, 

 that Mr. Colman will be longest and most widely known and remembered. 

 So highly was his work appreciated that the Republic of France, through 

 its Minister of Agriculture, conferred on him la crosse de Officier du 

 Merite Agricole, an honor which but few Americans have received. 



The University of Missouri, at its late commencement exercises, in 



