356 Home Department. [August, 



of equal rights has been trumpeted to our hearts* content, while the 

 reality has been kept beyond our reach. To silence the feeling which 

 was evident among farmers, a Home Department was created; but in 

 what part of that department do we find the agricultural interests 

 represented? The Commissioner of Patents and his bureau are under 

 the charge of the secretary of this department, and in a cellar room of 

 the Patent Office, for a time, we find a clerk having charge of the 

 agricultural portion of the Patent Office, whose business seemed to be 

 to get up a volume, each year, made up of extracts from agricultural 

 papers, and the special views of this clerk on a few prominent points in 

 agriculture, or such at least as he conceived to be prominent. Indeed, 

 this Home Department, so far as it related to agriculture, would remind 

 one of a theatrical preformance which occurred in England some years 

 ago. The play of Hamlet was announced, but the principle actor 

 being sick, it was stated that the part of Hamlet would, by particular 

 desire, be omitted. 



We have schools for the army and navy ; we send commissioners 

 abroad to examine the tactics of other countries ; and every collateral 

 branch connected with military engineering, is fostered by government 

 patronage. The pupils at our military schools are taught many branches 

 of simple and ornamental character, the more completely to fit them as 

 soldiers and gentlemen; and so it should be. Nor do farmers complain 

 of this, although they are the payers of four-fifths of the expense. But 

 when has a commission existed under our government, for collecting 

 information, either at home or abroad, for the use of the agriculturists? 

 What adequate organization has ever been made, to diffuse information 

 on this most important subject? In what bureau at Washington do we 

 find an account of the organization of the agricultural colleges of Europe? 

 What proportion of the public purse (four-fifths of which is furnished 

 by farmers) has been expended for their benefit ? Wliat part of the 

 ten millions, which has been appropriated by Congress for experiments 

 with various scientific and mechanical devices, has been devoted to 

 improvements in the construction of agricultural implements, or improved 

 modes of culture? Where are our agricultural colleges, and what other 

 civilized country is without them? 



Thousands of dollars have been appropriated for improvements in 

 the telescope, yet not one dollar for improvements in the plow. Is 

 the surface of the moon of more consequence, to those who support the 

 government of the United States, than the surface of the earth ? Why 

 can not part of the public domain be given to the States, for the purpose 

 of endowing agricultural colleges ? Why could not our foreign consuls 



