EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XXVII. December, 1912. No. 8. 



Provision for aiding and strengthening the great national industry 

 of agriculture through a central agency was slow in coming in the 

 United States. T\^ith a separateness which was long characteristic 

 the States were left to their own devices, and it was not conceived to 

 be the policy of the General Government to concern itself with the 

 subject. Its vast public domain, much of which was then considered 

 useless for agriculture, was in charge of a land office whose functions 

 were restricted to its survey and record and disposal under federal 

 laws. 



As early as 1796 the suggestion of federal aid for the promotion of 

 agriculture was made by President George Washington, who laid 

 before Congress a plan for an agency modeled after the British 

 Board of Agriculture, of which he was an honorary member. But 

 Congress failed to act on this suggestion, as it did on a similar pro- 

 posal which came from the Agricultural Society of Berkley, Mass., 

 in 1817. 



In the course of time, however, the use of public funds for agri- 

 cultural work began to be practiced, plants, seeds and animals being 

 introduced through the Consular Service and turned over for dis- 

 tribution to the Patent Office, which was then under the State Depart- 

 ment. When Henry L. Ellsworth, a practical Connecticut farmer, 

 became Commissioner of Patents in 1836, he gave special attention 

 to the distribution of seeds and plants, and in 1839 he secured a 

 Congressional appropriation of $1,000 " for the purpose of collecting 

 and distributing seeds, prosecuting agricultural investigations, and 

 procuring agricultural statistics." 



Commissioner Ellsworth gave in his report for 1842 a prophetic 

 view of what the application of science would mean to agricultural 

 production. But there were many doubters, not only of the value 

 of science as applied to agriculture, but also of the desirability of 

 government aid to agriculture. This is evidenced by fluctuating ap- 

 propriations, which at times were cut off entirely. After the Patent 

 Office was transferred to the Interior Department, in 1849, the appro- 

 priations increased, a chemist, botanist, and statistician were em- 

 ployed, meteorological data were regularly furnished by the Smith- 



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