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The aunual report contains a condensed statement of the operations of the year, and 

 of course embodies information concerning the growth and development of the country 

 which cannot be obtained through any other channel. 



As this information is intended for the benefit and encouragement of the great pro- 

 ducing class of the country, Congress should not hesitate to grant whatever appropri- 

 ations may be deemed necessary to render the Department useful and efficient in 

 the discharge of the important duties intrusted to it. 



Eeferring to the Congressional Record, it is shown that Congress authorized the 

 publication and made adequate appropriations for the printing of 165,000 copies of the 

 anual report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the year 1865, 225,000 copies for 

 the year 1870, 225,000 copies for the year 1871, and but 25,000 copies for the year 1872, 

 and 100,000 copies for the year 1873. 



What disposition of the report for the year 1874 will be made by Congress remains 

 to be seen. 



• From the daily correspondence in the bands of the Commissioner of Agriculture, the 

 importance of procuring new and valuable seeds is made quite obvious. Varieties of 

 the cereals formerly prized here have been from year to year deteriorating, and the 

 product per acre of staple grains has been steadily diminishing. Perhaps one of the 

 principal causes of deterioration is the slight attention paid by farmers to the selection 

 of seeds; but, while this is the case, it should be remembered that securing the very 

 best seeds is not all that is necessary. The very best seeds, those that yielded most 

 abundantly on the best-prepared soils, will either fail or show a poor return on worn- 

 out or poorly-prepared soils. While this is the case, there seems to be no good reason 

 why farms that at one time yielded thirty bushels of wheat per acre should now pro- 

 duce only from twelve to fifteen bushels per acre. 



As evidence of the great benefit to accrue to the material and productive interests of 

 the country, as reached by the operations of the Department of Agriculture, it will only 

 be necessary to call your attention to a single instance to fully illustrate this. As 

 shown by reliable returns, the oats-crop of 1868 amounted to 254,960,800 bushels ; 

 acreage, 9,665,736 ; average yield per acre, 26.36 bushels ; value of crop, $142,484,910; 

 average price per bushel, fifty-five cents. 



Reports of experiments with the " Excelsior oats," a new variety imported by this 

 Department for this and former years, show aii average production of forty bushels 

 per acre, sixty bushels not being an uncommon yield. Estimating the average produc- 

 tion per acre, if generally introduced, au increase of but four bushels per acre over the 

 average yield of 1868, and the addition to the wealth of the country in the item of 

 oats alone would be 38,622,944 bushels, or §21,264,619 in value. The weight of the 

 product of this variety of oats, for a few years aftex its introduction, may be fairly aver- 

 aged at twenty-five per cent, above the common kinds, estimating the latter at thirty 

 pounds per bushel and the former at thirty-six pounds, although in many cases forty 

 and forty-five pounds jier measured bushel have been reported. Add twenty-five per 

 cent, to the sum above ascertained, and an increase will be shown in the productive 

 industries of the country of the enormous sum of 5125,517,542 per annum. 



Other new and valuable seeds introduced by this Department have shown equally 

 gratifying results. 



As before stated, our great diversity of soil, climate, and elevation gives our country 

 an advantage over any other single sovereignty in the civilized world. Unlike most 

 other countries, we export all the productions of the soil necessary to sustain life. There 

 is scarcely a cereal, a plant, or a fruit that we cannot produce here in the greatest 

 abundance. Our territory .is extensive, and its climate is as varied as its miles and 

 degrees in latitude and longitude. While on the north we have a climate in which all 

 the hardier plants and fruits may be raised in the greatest abundance, on the south 

 we have a climate varying from temperate to tropical, where all the semi-tropical fruits 

 and plants may be raised at a profit to the producer. 



Your attention is called to the efforts of the Commissioner to impress upon the peo- 

 ple of the Southern States the importance of the cultivation of the jute-plant, which 

 has become au article of great coumiercial importance. 



The report of the directors of the State Agricultural Society of California for the year 

 1872 shows that the wheat-crop of that State alone amounted to about thirty millions 

 of bushels. 



Owing to the high price of sacks and no timber in that country suitable for making 

 flour-barrels — the product must always be shipped in the grain in sacks — and the lim- 

 ited facilities afforded for transporting this immense yield of grain to market, the produ- 

 cer receives but a small return from the crop. After apiiealing to the farmers of the State 

 to provide against such contingencies hereafter by purchasing their sacks rly in the 

 season, the directors say : " Nearly all of our grain-sacks are now made of the fibers of 

 a plant called jute. The principal place of production of this plant is now in India, in 

 the British possessions of that country, and the princip.il place of its manufacture, not 

 only into cloth but into sacks, is Dundee, Scotland. The cost to the farmers of Cali- 

 fornia to sack their last crop of wheat was not less, biit probably more than §2,450,000. 



