353 



processes, in variety of crops and increase of industries, and especially iu adopting 

 labor-saving expedients and machines, and acqniring the mastery of the science of 

 farm improvements and renovation. No longer should the planter be migratory, wast- 

 ing- field after field, and seeking new soils to devastate. Recuperation must take the 

 place of destruction, and convenient farm buildings, roads, and other improvements 

 will follow, and serve to foster local attachments and love of home, and to increase the. 

 general wealth and advance refinemetit, and promote the highest type of civilization. 



Using their advantage of climate and soil, and following your example of diversi- 

 fying agricultural industry, the South uuiy yet produce the value of a hundred million 

 dollars, now imported, and increase the iudixstries of the countrj*, the estimated value 

 of which it would be impossible now to compute. 



Our nation is entering upon a new era. "With increase of area, giving the widest 

 variety to soils and climate, accompanied with inmngration from every quarter of the 

 globe, it is daily becoming more a necessity of our condition that new industries should be 

 inaugurated, and new products grown, new processes of utilization attempted, and atteu- 

 tion hn thus directed from those great industries pursued as specialties, as cotton, or 

 wheat, or whatever pronjises to reVluce the profit of labor by over-production, and which 

 are always foes to scientific agriculture ami real improvement. 



We are paying tens of millions of dollars annually for fibers, oils, fruits, and other 

 aliments, medicines, and dyes, which can readily be produced here, thus keeping our 

 treasure at home, and giving rural laljor a variety and range which will serve better 

 than trades unions or any expedients of combination to keep up the price and improve 

 the condition of the laborer, not alone the laborer upon the farm, but the worker in 

 all the arts of mechanism and faViricatiou. 



It is my earnest desire and deliberate pui'pose, in my official capacity, and through 

 the Department of the government over which I have been called to preside, to co-oper- 

 ate with you, and with the friends of rural progress everywhere, in all eftbrts tending 

 to the advancement of a scientific, systematic, rational and practical system of Ameri- 

 can agriculture, suited to our peculiar wants and circumstances, and not a servile copy 

 of any foreign system, however advanced in its philosophy or valuable its results. 



The Department of Agriculture is estaldishing relations with all organized represen- 

 tatives of agriculture, whether governmental or otherwise, making exchanges of seeds, 

 plants, and publications ; it is searching through the world for new and valuable plants 

 to acclimatize, new varieties of cereals to test, and, when proved valuable, to distribute. 

 It is stated on competent local authority that hundreds of thousands of bushels of oats 

 are now grown in a single Western State from seed distributed a few years ago, greatly 

 excelling the common seed in productiveness and in quality. Similar facts, showing 

 an increase of millions of dollars in the })r()duction of the country, through the direct 

 agency of the De^iartment, are filed iu its archives. 



The Department embraces in its work the collection and dissemination of statistics 

 and practical information ; chemical analyses of whatever will throw new light upon 

 the mooted questions of progressive agriculture ; experimental horticulture, with illus- 

 trations of landscape gardening and rural adornment ; entomology, with its myriad 

 forms of life, either favorable or inimical to vegetation; botany, with a continental 

 field but partially worked, and promising rich rewards. These and other objects of 

 efibrt are ever before us, and I believe our working corps are not entirely devoid of 

 appreciation of the importance of efficient service, and are making a good degree of 

 progress in the great work. 



In conclusion, allow me to express the pleasure I feel in greeting again my old 

 fiiends; iu witnessing the evidence of your skill and industry, your taste and judg- 

 ment, your comfortable houses and your improving farms. You have made a desert 

 to bloom as a rose ; you have caused mucli grass to grow where literally none grew 

 before, and are therefore doubly and peculiarly benefactors. Continue to advance ; 

 take no step backward : and turn not your backs, you or your children, on so honor- 

 able a pursuit, so healthy, and so conducive to virtue and true comfort, as that by which 

 you have already wrought results so beneficial and so substantial. 



SOUTHERN AGRICULTURAL CONGRESS. 



A circular issued by a joint committee of the Cotton States Mechan- 

 ics' and Agricultural Fair Association and the Augusta Board of Trade 

 proposes to southern agriculturists the formation of a central organiza- 

 tion or " agricultural congress," for the advancement of their interests, 

 including the improvement of the labor system, the encouragement of 

 foreign immigration, and the diversification of the agricultural products 



