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1. DIVISION' OF STATISTICS. 



This is the office of publication, whence are issued the anmuil reports of the Depart- 

 ment of nearly a quarter of a million copies anil a monthly report of twenty-live thou- 

 sand copies, embracing official data from thousands of corresponilents located in nearlj^ 

 every county in the Union, regarding the modes of cultivation and prospects of crops. 

 These reports, annual as well as monthly, are the most popular and most desired of 

 any of the public documents printed by the Government. They are sought for and 

 distributed by the fin-eign legations resident in this country to all the European Govern- 

 ments. A much larger numl)er of the annual report should be printed for circTilation 

 among our people, as now half the demand for them cannot be supplied by members 

 of Congress or the Department. 



2. DIVISION OF AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. 



1. This division aftords a medium ot correspondence and information between the 

 various agricultural societies and farmers ; answering queries on samples forwarded, 

 as ores, minerals, waters ; making chemical examinations of natural products and fer- 

 tilizers, as marls, iieats, &c., and giving advice upon the same. Many hundreds of 

 letters are answered every year on these subjects. 



2. It is a means through which any new vegetable products, valuable through their 

 chemical constitution, maybe examined and brought before public notice as worthy of 

 growth in the States. 



3. It is a means whereby large and useful manufactures not existing in this country 

 may be brought under the notice of farmers. In this way the growth of the beet for 

 sugar has been recommended, and is becoming adopted. Comparatively few experi- 

 ments in its growth had been tried before the Department entered on the consideratiou 

 of the subject. 



4. By its means chemical examinations of the value and composition of vegetable 

 products grown for food in the United States may be conducted on that scale which, 

 embracing the area of the whole country, will lead to more valuable and truthful re- 

 sults than those undertaken by a single State or institution not possessing the exten- 

 sive communication and correspondence which the Department has. Of this nature is 

 the determination of the nutritive value of cereals grown in the several States, which 

 has just been commenced, and which no doubt will yield valuable results. 



3. DIVISION OF BOTANY, 



The purpose of this division is to give a scientific basis, derived from an accurate 

 knowledge of the ascertained laws of vegetable growth, on which alone any success- 

 ful system of progressive agriculture can be founded. This is being accomplished in 

 this division by bringing together as tar as possible all the A^aried forms of plants, 

 either in a living state or in the preserved form of herbarium specimens. These are 

 so arranged that any particular plant or class of plants can be readily found, and the 

 relation to allied plants, whetlier as to uses or capacity for cultivation, can be ascer- 

 tained with the least labor. By this arrangement, in connection with works of refer- 

 ence giving full accounts of habit, mode of growtli, native location, geographical dis- 

 tribution, changes by cultivation, and uses either for food, medicine, or in the arts, 

 there will be accumulated a fimd of reliable information, exceedingly valuable in di- 

 recting culture or indicating sources of supplies of desired materials in medicine or 

 the arts. It is iiitended by this division to secure the actiA'e cooperation of all Avork- 

 ing botanists in this country and abroad, by a proper system of correspondence and 

 exchange, and thus to furnish valuable information on the progress of botanical re- 

 search i)i its direct relation to horticulture and agriculture. 



4. DIVISION OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



The principal feature of this division is the museum of natural history. This is an 

 economic collection, exhibiting the process of manufacture of the raw products of agri- 

 cultural industry, in which tlie textile arts, the making of sugars and dyes, and the 

 utilization and extension of the primitive products of the earth are illustrated; also 

 illustrations of the various transformations of insects, botli favorable and inimical to 

 vegetation. In this museum are models of the various fruits and specimens of grain, 

 &c., of this country. They are intended to rejjresent type siiecimens of such varieties, 

 and to show which kinds are particularly adapted to any particular region, climate, or 

 soil. It is intended to represent each State by sections of cases, containing the different 

 varieties of fruits, grains, &c., that have been reconnneuded by State boards of agri- 

 culture as especially adapted for culture in their particular States, thus saving years of 

 labor and probable loss to the new settler by exhibiting at one view those varieties 

 "which have been experimented uijou and found to succeed the best. Duplicate collec- 



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