2G4 



.annually a resnm^ of tlie condition of the crops found no expression in 

 its pag'es. An enlargement of the duties and an increase of the execu- 

 tive force of the agricultural division were recommended. In this and 

 the preceding report meteorological observations were omitted. 



From December 13, 18G0, to March 28, 1861, S. T. Sbugert, esq., was Act- 

 ing Commissioner. He was succeeded on the date last named by Hon. 

 David P. HoUoway, of Indiana, whose annual report, appearing in the 

 following year, (1802,) was the most complete agricultural manual the 

 Patent Oflice had yet issued, but it did not contain one line of statistics 

 relative to agriculture or related subjects, except some tables of milk 

 production, nor a single letter concerning the condition of the crops. 

 It was exclusively composed of essays. The report was the last of its 

 kind. Thereafter the annual reports were devoted more to the presen- 

 tation of the current facts of agriculture in the United States, especi- 

 ally the recording of its achievements, and less to the presentation of 

 special theories and other matters which properly pertain to the pro- 

 vince of the journalist and book publisher. 



During Mr. Holloway's administration the Department of xVgriculture 

 was organized. Reference has already been made to the opinion ex- 

 l^ressed by several Commissioners in favor of an enlargement of the 

 duties of the agricultural division. Commissioner HoUoway, in his first 

 annual report, which appeared in January, 1862, boldly and ably reiter- 

 ated and enforced this opinion. He urged the creation of a separate 

 Department of the Government — a Department of the Productive Arts — 

 to care for all the industrial interests of the country, but especially 

 agriculture. The Commissioner's earnest and elaborate plea, aided by 

 other influential representations, prevailed with Congress. A portion 

 of the lilan for the establishment of a Department of Industry was 

 adopted. i 



On the 15th of May, 1862, the act establishing the "Department of 

 Agriculture" became a law, and on the 1st day of July the Department 

 was foriyally organized in the rooms of the Patent Office previously 

 occupied by the agricultural division of that bureau. The first section 

 of the act declared the "general designs and duties" of the Department 

 to be " to acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States 

 useful information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most 

 general and comprehensive sense of that word, and to procure, propa- 

 gate, and distribute among the peoi)le new and valuable seeds and 

 plants," and the succeeding sections provided for the appointment by 

 the President of a chief executive officer, to be styled the "Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture." It was not, however, provided that the Com- 

 missioner, although the head of an independent Department of the Gov- 

 ernment, should be a member of the Cabinet. 



Hon. Isaac Newton, of Pennsylvania, who had been, since early in 

 1861, the superintendent of the agricultural division of the Patent Office, 

 was appointed by President Lincoln the first Commissioner of Agricul- 

 ture. Upon assuming the duties of his office, he at once proceeded to 

 organize the Department in accordance with the liberal spirit of the act 

 creating it. The time was pregnant with mighty events, and every De- 

 partment of the Government felt the stimulus of the grave perils which 

 beset the very existence of the nation. The clerical force of the former 

 agricultural division was increased; a chemist (Charles M. Wetherill, ) 

 w^as engaged, and a laboratory established; a skillful horticulturist 

 was placed in charge of the propagating or experimental garden ; greater 

 activity in the collection and dissemination of current agricultural facts 

 was inaugurated, and a larger quantity of seeds and cuttings was dis- 

 tributed. 



