REPORT 



COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE 



Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C, Novemher 15, 1886. 

 To the President: ' 



I respectfully submit my second annual preliminary report as Com- 

 missioner of Agriculture. 



American agriculture lias developed colossal proportions. With, 

 more than two centuries of growth, much the larger part of its de- 

 velopment has come from the thought and labor of the last thirty 

 years. In that time wheat has quadrupled its product, corn has a 

 threefold production, and cotton has doubled its annual crop. For 

 every pound of meat and gallon of milk in 1856 there are three in 

 1886, and more than four times as many pounds of wool. It is no 

 idle boast that this country produces more than half the cotton of the 

 world and three-fourths of the maize. 



With production so varied that only the tropical fruits are lacking, 

 and so abundant as to secure almost unexampled cheapness, it is cer- 

 tain that this is the best-fed nation on the globe. Meat, an occa- 

 sional indulgence in many countries, is here the staple of nearly 

 every meal, and the average of individual consumption is at least 

 three pounds for every one consumed in Europe. Fruits are so 

 abundant as to tax the power of home consumption, the surplus 

 going to waste if not fed to farm animals. While the meats, wool, 

 and corn, wine and oil, sugar and rice, and products of the dairy and 

 of the orchard and garden, are mostly consumed at home, we are 

 supplying the deficiencies of other countries, still shipping about 

 two-thirds of our cotton, one-fourth of our wheat, and one-fifth of 

 our pork products to foreign countries, and ever ready to enter any 

 door of profitable consumption that opens to receive the surplus of 

 our manufactured products of agriculture. 



American agriculture is progressive. Its comparatively low yields 

 are due to the abundance and cheapness of virgin soil, and the desire 

 to compass a wider land area in the regions of primitive cultivation. 

 The rate of yield is increasing in older settlements under the influence 

 of better methods, higher skill, and fertilizing restoratives. Its char- 

 acteristic features are the application of labor-saving machinery, 



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