1856.] Jffome Department. 855 



large number, not a death, nor even a case of serious illness, has 

 occurred within the year. 



The next session of the College will open on Wednesday, September 

 5, 1856. 



0me geprtmenL 



It will be seen that a Bureau of Agriculture is again being talked of 

 at Washington; and we are sorry to find some of our contemporaries 

 approving of this attempted apology at supplying the wants of the 

 &rmer. The greatest interest of our country should demand and re- 

 ceive an organization somewhat adequate to its wants. A Department 

 of Agriculture, with a secretary, who should be a cabinet officer, holding 

 even rank with the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Sec- 

 retary of War, etc., is demanded by the farmers, and they should not 

 accept of a sub-organization. At the early formation of our govern- 

 ment, its founders were anxious to organize a Home Department; and, 

 as the records will show, it was then laid aside, simply because a pro- 

 per incumbent could not at that time be found as its secretary ; and 

 the meaning of this department was then distinctly understood to be a 

 department for the improvement and protection of agriculture and 

 Qther industrial arts. Gen. Washington afterward recommended such 

 an organization, and called it a Home Department of Agriculture. 

 Smce that time our farmers, who compose the great body of voters, 

 have sent representatives to Congress, and have generally selected them 

 from among lawyers, or men of leisure and fortune. 



The requirements of the new country for a time occupied the energies 

 of Congress; and then the habit of selecting such a class of represen- 

 tatives confirmed those in office, and secured the reelection of them- 

 Belves, or, by their influence, men of similar employment or occupation; 

 and these Congressmen, forgetting that more than four-fifths of their 

 constituents were too much engaged in agricultural pursuits to busy 

 themselves with the affairs of government, and preferring to leave their 

 interests in the hands of their representatives, have caused the great 

 interests of the majority to be entirely neglected. Every other country 

 in Chnstendom has such a department; and for want of such govern- 

 ment countenance, the farmers have not advanced in knowledge pro- 

 portionably with those engaged in other interests. For want of such 

 a department the farmers have been amused rather than instructed, and 

 the whole nation has remained divided into two classes. The poetry 



