6 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



tigation into agricultural subjects. Here, too, there is supplied the 

 current knowledge and experience of the day. And while the services 

 of all who are competent are constantly brought into requisition to 

 make up the monthly publications of the Department, all information, 

 foreign and domestic, is thus utilized, and, through the instrumentality 

 of agricultural and secular journals, is put into the hands of the farm- 

 ing community. 



It will thus be seen that the framers of the organic law which estab- 

 lished this Department wisely foresaw the necessity for making pro- 

 vision to promote and foster a great interest, which those who are en- 

 gaged in it, because of the isolated nature of their employment, coidd 

 not do for themselves. The whole people of the earth are dependent 

 for their existence upon the products of the soil j and every improve- 

 ment which tends to the increase of those products multiplies the wealth 

 and happiness of mankind to a degree greater than any other opera- 

 tion of life, measured by the much greater number of those engaged 

 in it. 



The operations of the Department for the past year have been en- 

 larged commensurately with the increased appropriation which it was 

 the pleasure of Congress to make at its last session for the distribution 

 of seeds ; and I speak advisedlj-^ when I declare that there is no part of 

 the work of the Department which is so unqualifiedly approved, and 

 none, I am sure, which works so large a benefit to public interests. 

 The farmer has no means of acquiring a knowledge of the existence of 

 improved seeds, nor of obtaining them if he had. It has been a special 

 emiiloyment of this Dei)artment to seek and obtain seeds of a superioi" 

 quality, appropriate them to the climate best adapted to their profitable 

 use, and place them in the hands of the careful cultivator, upon the 

 sole condition that he will correctly advise the Department of their 

 success or failure. 



liamie and jute, fibrous plants which promise great value, have recently 

 been introduced into the United States, and to some extent have been 

 distributed by the Department in the Southern States, the climate of 

 which is alone adapted to their successful production. Of the former, 

 little progress has been made in its use, because machinery has not been 

 invented by which its fiber may be separated ; but its value, in view of 

 its fineness, strength, and beauty, will yet command an exercise of in- 

 genuity which will make its culture a profitable industry. The latter 

 has already taken its place in the manufacture of carpets and other 

 fabrics as a substitute for cotton, wool, flax, and hair. Each of these, 

 I may safely predict, is destined to occupy an important place in the 

 products and manufactures of this country ; and it is not the least im- 

 portant consideration that they may serve largely to diversify the crops 

 of our Southern States, a subject which has commanded much of my 

 attention because of my conviction of the many benefits which will re- 

 sult therefrom. 



