1894. SOME NEW BOOKS. 67 



a new one has since been built at Kabeti to replace it. Mr. 

 McDermott has certainly done his work well, and given us an 

 interesting history and ingenious defence of the Company ; hut we 

 fear he will only strengthen the general feeling that the Company's 

 record shows that a mixture of philanthropy and business seldom pays. 

 Had the Company stuck to one or the other, and especially if it had 

 confined its attention to administration pure and simple, and the 

 utilisation of the available resources of the district, this book would 

 probably never have been written, for an apology might then have 

 been unnecessary. 



Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1892. 8vo. Pp. 656, with 71 plates. 

 Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893. 



On the back of the title-page of this some\vhat bulky volume there is 

 printed a copy of a public resolution : — " Resolved by the Senate 

 and House of Representatives of the United States of America in 

 Congress assembled, — That there be printed 500,000 copies of the 

 Annual Report of the Secretary of Agriculture for the year 1892 "; 

 and also " That the sum of 300,000 dollars, or so much thereof as 

 may be necessary, is hereby appropriated ... to defray the cost of 

 printing said report." 



Three hundred thousand dollars is, roughly, £|'6o,ooo. Our 

 Transatlantic cousins have a vastly higher opinion of agriculture as a 

 national concern than we ourselves if they are willing to spend 

 /"Go, 000 in taking the first step to make public the results of one 

 3'ear's work. But then, as Mr. Rusk, the Secretary, observes, " The 

 great blessing which this country enjoys from the fact that it is far 

 less than some other countries the home of large landed proprietors," 

 presents certain difficulties which it is the province of the Department 

 to remove. That is to say, the absence of large landowners, command- 

 ing extensive capital, throws the burden of experiment and investiga- 

 tion of agricultural problems on the shoulders of the Agricultural 

 Department. This, of course, explains the bulky volume, the perusal of 

 which we would recommend to large landowners in general, as an 

 incentive to the publication of those results of experiment and investi- 

 gation which we have a right to expect from the possessors of 

 extensive capital. 



The general report of the Secretary occupies sixty pages, and 

 gives an idea of the scope of the Department and the possibilities of 

 future development. Unfortunately, we find it hampered by " the 

 inadequate compensation which it is authorised to offer to the men 

 of talent, scientific education, and experience which it needs to carry 

 on its most responsible duties," in which its " facilities will be found 

 to compare very unfavourably with those of the other Department'^ 

 of the Government." We know of parallel cases. It does seem 

 somewhat incongruous that, while 300,000 dollars are voted for print- 

 ing reports, the herbarium, including the largest collection of American 

 grasses in existence, and containing type specimens of nearly all the 

 American species described during the last fifteen years, should be 

 housed in a non-fireproof building. Meanwhile " Congress saw fit to 

 extend an appropriation, covering the present fiscal year," to provide 

 for experiments on the production of rainfall by explosives, but Mr. 

 Rusk does not think that his facts relating to this subject justify the 

 anticipations formed by the believers in this method of artificial rain- 

 making. 



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