14 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OP AGRICULTURE. 



In the hope of having, at Bome future day, the means and couvenicncea of 

 introducing and testing foreign trees, plants, and vegetables, I have taken great 

 pains to establish communications with our consuls residing in foreign ports, 

 and with great success. Many of them replied promptly, and forwarded desLia- 

 ble specimens of seeds and plants, and much valuable information. 



I desire especially to express the obligations I am under to the State Depart- 

 ment for furnishing every facility for these communications, and for its atten- 

 tion and promptness in forwarding to this department everything of interest to 

 the agriculturists of this country. 



The balance of the appropriation for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1863, 

 remaining unexpended on the 31st of December, 18G2, was $25,675 98; de- 

 ficiency appropriation, (March 3, 1863, chapter 79,) $20,000. The amount ap- 

 propriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1864, is $95,000, (February 25, 



1863, chapter 59.) The expenditures from the 31st of December, 1862, to the 

 30th of November, 1863, for all purposes, amount to $87,792 96, leaving an 

 unexpended balance of the appropriation for the fiscal year ending June 30. 



1864, of $52,883 02. 



In reference to the special appropriation of $20,000 " for investigations to 

 test the practicability of cultivating and preparing flax and hemp as substitutes 

 for cotton," I have the honor to report that, up to this time, no portion of it 

 has been expended. 



In asking of Congress an increased appropriation for the next fiscal year, I 

 desire to notice, very briefly, a statement frequently made by some of our public 

 men, that agriculture does not need or desire legislative aid in any respect ; in 

 other words, that fanners only wish to be let alone. No doubt agriculturists 

 object to injurious legislation as much as any other class of our citizens ; but 

 when the government aims directly to benefit the farmer, leaving him, however, 

 free to accept or reject its aid, by the introduction of foreign stock, grains, 

 grasses, roots, fruits, and other products, by imparting valuable information as 

 the result of chemical analysis, of experiments in culture and machinery, by 

 gathering and diffusing throughout the country valuable statistics relating to 

 home and foreign crops, showing the excess or diminution of the same, in order 

 to guide the farmer in the planting and disposal of his grain, there is no ques- 

 tion as to their approval. 



One of our ablest public men, in speaking of agriculture as it exists in por- 

 tions of our country to-day, makes the following remark, over which every 

 farmer and legislator should ponder: "If St. Paul worthily had his spirit 

 stirred within him by the senseless idolatry of polished, intellectual Athens, I 

 feel that an honest man, who knows what agriculture might and should he in 

 the United States, can hardly restrain his indignation in view of what it quite 

 commonly is. To look over an average farm on this Atlantic seaboard, and see 

 its owner gravely ploughing around and over the same stones that his great 

 grandfather ploughed over a century ago, when they should long since have been 

 removed, or the fields containing them given up to the growth of timber — grow- 

 ing two h^dred bushels of corn per annum on ten acres, when he might grow 



