one Po RT 
OF THE 
COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
Washington, D. C., November 15, 1878. 
To the President : 
Str: Again for the fourth consecutive year the earth has rewarded 
the toil of our husbandmen by a bountiful yield of nearly all of the diver- 
sified objects of our agriculture, and we have abundant reason for grate- 
ful acknowledgment to the bounteous Giver of all good things. <A con- 
trast of the condition of our people with a portion of the inhabitants of 
the great Chinese Empire, where hundreds of thousands have perished 
miserably because of the failure, in certain sections, of the rice crop, on 
which alone they depended for subsistence, enforces most emphatically 
the wisdom of insisting upon a diversity of agricultural products. The 
Department of Agriculture has for one of its leading objects the intro- 
duction of all the productions of the earth that can be grownin any part 
of our country, and to encourage by every means that diversity of pro- 
duction which is at once the safety and the wealth of the nation. 
In the endeavor to faithfully execute my duties as Commissioner of 
Agriculture my efforts have been ably seconded by the heads of divisions, 
clerks, and employés of the department during the past year. The work 
intrusted to them all has been faithfully and diligently performed, and 
I hope will result in valuable and permanent benefit to the whole 
country. 
The work of the Chemical Division of the Department of Agriculture 
during the year may be summarized as follows: 
1. Examination of minerals, including calcareous and phosphate 
marls, rock phosphate, &c., (81 in number). 
2. Analyses of mineral, spring, and well water (10 in number). 
. Analyses of soils (4 in number). 
. Analyses of sugar-beets (45 specimens). 
. Analyses of cane, maize, and sorghum sugars (8 samples). 
. Analysis of beet sirup. 
. Analysis of sorghum sirup. 
. Analysis of brewers’ grain, to ascertain the food value thereof. 
. Analyses of fertilizers, superphosphates, &c. (4 samples). 
10. Examination of plants for narcotic poisons or other alkaloids (5 
specimens). 
oon oc Oe 
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