128 



Another thing: Agricultural colleges, uurler the liberal land grants of Congress, are 

 being established in different States, under State coutrol. This Department, as a com- 

 mon head, can and will furnish great assistance in the farm education proposed in these 

 colleges. 



Like the Bureau of Education, but recently established to concentrate statistics and 

 lead and give information and direction to educational interests in the States, this 

 Department will be able to give the same, and perhaps much greater, facilities iu the 

 directiou of agricultural education among the j)eople. 



PUBLIC LiXDS. 



Intimately connected with this subject is the land policy of the Government, about 

 which I desire to make a few additional remarks. In the early days of the Republic 

 our public lands were regarded as a source of revenue. It was expected from their 

 sale to pay a large proportion of the expenses of the Government; but in later days it 

 was found that, with expense of survey and sale, these expectations vrere not realized, 

 and a new policy was adopted, and large quantities of the public domain have been 

 used in constructing railroads, endowing colleges, rewarding military services, and 

 stimulating immigration by giving homesteads to all persons who will live on and 

 improve them. 



In this way this heritage of the iieople has largely contributed to the material devel- 

 opment of our country. These grants have not always been wisely made, and in many 

 respects have no doubt been great outrages upon the rights of the people. The future 

 policy of the GoA^ernment should be to so provide by legislation that our public lands 

 should be preserved for actual settlers, and thereby furnish free homes to the landless. 

 Concentration of large quantities in the hands of monopolists and speculators is the 

 great curse of most of the Western States, and has and does imi)ede agricultural im- 

 provement and development. 



Of our public lands about seventy-eight million acres have been granted for schools 

 and colleges, over ten millions of which have been given to agricultural colleges. Two 

 hundred million acres have been appropriated and given to build railroads and other 

 improvements. About seventy-three million acres have been given to our soldiers, 

 their widows and children. The Government still owns about a thousand million acres. 

 This vast domain as fast as it is surveyed is open to settlement under our homestead 

 •laws, which give every man or unmarried woman one hundred and sixty acres for the 

 cost of survey and entry, upon living upon and improving the same for the time lim- 

 ited, which is five years, excei)t a soldier, who, under the bill passed by the House, is 

 allowed to count three years of his tei'm of service in the Army, or whatever term 

 under that' period he has served, as iiart of the five years' residence. 



In the year 1869, about two and a half million acres were given to homestead and 

 preemption settlers. In the same year about eight million acres were converted from 

 wild lands into farms, making some sixty thousand farms. We now have over six 

 million real-estate owners, being one in about every six of our population, and nearly 

 one-half of onr whole population are engaged in the pursuit of agricultui-e. 



The whole lauded property of England is now owned by thirty thousand persons, 

 making one in every six hundred and fifty, of its population. One-half of its soil is 

 now owned by about one hundred and fifty persons. Nineteen and a half million 

 acres in Scotland are owned by twelve proprietors. In this country this extensive 

 ownership of the soil, the sense of proprietorship resulting therefroin, encouraging in- 

 dependence of action and thought, constitute the corner-stone of our Eci^ublic. The 

 multiplication of these free homes for the people, instilling into their minds the spirit 

 of agriculture and mechanical i)rogress, and education, and moral development, and 

 improvement, will secure freedom, equality, and prosperity among our people, and 

 lierpetuity to our Government. 



In this grand work, with such support as should be and no doubt will be given to it, 

 the Agricultural Department, iu the future as in the i)ast, will be an efficient and im- 

 portant aid to the other branches of the Government. The memorial to which I have 

 alluded alleges tliat over three million dollars have already been expended upon the 

 Department without any corresponding benefits. Having stated its great benefits in 

 the past, and what it is expected to accomplish in the future, I append to these remarks 

 a statement showing the several appropriations for each year from 1839, the first oju- 

 made, to and including 1870 : 



1839, (first apiiropriation for the iiromotiou of agriculture, from Patent Office 



fund) .SI, 000 



1842, (from Patent Oflice fund) 1, 000 



1843, (from Patent Office fund) 2, 000 



1844, (from Patent Office fund) 2, 000 



184.5, (from Patent Office fund) 3, 000 



1846, (from Patent Office fund) 



1847, (from Patent Office fund) " 3,000 



