REPORT OP THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 43 



people. It ought to be borne in mind tliat tlie official reports, when 

 there are such, are not written from an American point of view, and 

 hence the practicability or impracticability of propositions or ma- 

 chinery as applied in this country is never set forth. The founda- 

 tion of the prosperity of this country rests upon agriculture, and the 

 greatest success of agricultiire will come from an intelligent applica- 

 tion of those practical methods which are the result of the combined 

 thought and experience not of America, but of the world itself. Our 

 people, competing as they do in foreign markets, ought to have the 

 advantage of every avenue which promises the latest information 

 relative to foreign needs and foreign methods. The information 

 should be collated and compiled by the best of our specialists. Faint 

 efforts have been made in the past to gather such information; and 

 while the result has been more than commensurate with the expense 

 incurred, yet there has always been the attending and humiliating 

 embarrassment of a lack of funds, and the work therefore more or 

 less circumscribed. 



The Department has no recourse but a uniform declination to all 

 these requests for conferenoG and interchange of thought between the 

 specialists of the tAvo hemispheres, I believe that some action should 

 be taken at once in this matter. National pride alone should dictate 

 a different policy than that heretofore pursued. If there be fear in 

 any quarter relative to an abuse of such a provision of law, a com- 

 mission might easily be established, to be composed of different offi- 

 cials, to pass upon the necessity or desirability for an investigation 

 in the directions to which I have alluded, 



DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS. 



The reports of the Department consist of annual, monthl}-, and 

 special volumes upon the various subjects with which it deals. The 

 demand for this agricultural literature is annually increasing, and 

 the record of the folding-room of the past year shows tha^ the num- 

 ber of volumes distributed among the people has been greater than 

 ever before in the DeiDartment's history. 



The Annual Report of 1885 has been printed during the current 

 year, by order of Congress, 310,000 copies in number, of which 280,- 

 000 are held for distribution by Senators and Members of the House 

 of Representatives, and 30,000 copies assigned to this Department. 

 Reports have been printed by the Dej)artment as follows : 



DIVISION OF STATISTICS — NEW SERIES. 



No. copies 

 printed. 



No. 25. Report on the crops of the year and on freight rates of transpor- 

 tation companies. December, 1885. 55 pp., octavo 15,000 



No. 26. Report upon the numbers and values of farm animals, on the cot- 

 ton crop and its distribution, and on freight rates of transpor- 

 tation companies. January and Februarj^, 1886. 56 pp. , oc- 

 tavo 15,000 



