8 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



the State are finely adapted to the cultivation of grasses and the raising of 

 stock, especially sheep. It was stated by the late Peter A. Brown, who had 

 in his cabinet Bpecimens of wool from all parts of the world, that the wool 

 from Virginia had more life and better working qualities than any other that 

 h.ad ever come under his microscopic examination. Owing to climate, diversity 

 of surface, and the abundance of iron in the soil, Virginia is well adapted to 

 all kinds of fruit, especially grapes, which are rapidly becoming one of the 

 great crops of the country. 



At the close of the present unnatural .and causeless war, Virginia, whose 

 soil has been so often pressed by hostile armies and moistened by the best 

 blood of the republic, will begin a new and better life. Centrally situated, 

 with water-sheds looking eastward and westward over a vast empire of free 

 and hopeful men, blessed with a salubrious climate and so many and such vast 

 natural advantages, she Avill be settled, at an early day, by a vigo;.'Ous and 

 progressive people. These general observations will equally apply to several 

 of the other southern States. 



Without dwelling further on general topics, I desire to call attention to the 

 labors and expenditures of the Department of Agriculture during the past 

 year ; to what it proposes to accomplish during the coming year, and to the 

 increased appropriation necessary to enable it thoroughly to fulfil its mission. 



A belief in the importance of agricultural statistics had been gaining strength 

 in the minds of our thinking men for a long time. But the events of the last 

 two years, and the present condition of the United States, in themselves, and 

 relatively to other nations, has wrought a thorough conviction that an absolute 

 necessity existed in our country, so essentially agricultural, upon which other 

 nations are so largely dependent for food supplies, and Avith which the interests 

 of trade and commerce are so closely interwoven, that more reliable information 

 must be obtained as to the supply, present and prospective, of the various 

 crops which would be required to meet the demands of home consumption and 

 for foreign export. To get the facts from which reliable estimates might be 

 made, required my first attention after the organization of the department, and 

 gave me no little anxiety. 



The joint resolution of Congress, passed March 3, 1863, that "the heads 

 of the several departments of government be required to furnish the Superin- 

 tendent of Public Printing with copies of the documents usually accompanying 

 the annual reports, on or before the first day of November of each year," could 

 not have been intended to apply to this department, whose duties, under the 

 organic act, in " the collection of statistics," could not possibly be concluded 

 by that time. 



To accomplish this great and very important object has required a large 

 amount of time and labor, and, notwithstanding many difficulties, the work 

 thus far has been accomplished to the satisfaction of the fiirmers of the country. 

 Although very much indebted to the full and complete returns of the Census 

 bureau, yet such were the extraordinary changes which had occurred in this 

 country since those were taken, in the diversion of laborers from the farm tx) 



