14 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
ment and allotted space to that provided by the United States Govern- 
ment for its Department of Agriculture. 
In concluding this branch of my report, it is pertinent to say that this 
department requires a working force of from 20 to 30 persons in the 
chemical division (it is now allowed but one chemist at the inadequate 
salary of $2,000, curtailed by reason of insufficient appropriation to 
$1,900 per annum, and one assistant chemist, whose salary has been 
curtailed for the like reason, from $1,600 to $1,400), and a suitable la- 
boratory apart from the main building, to enable the force to work to 
the best advantage. Three hundred thousand dollars would build a 
laboratory sufficient for the requirements of the department for a num- 
ber of years to come, which would be capable of doing much other 
work required by the different departments of the government and of 
various sections of the country. The need of such a laboratory is daily 
felt. The questions submitted by members of Congress, as well as offi- 
cials of other departments of the government, which affect the public 
’ weal, could be promptly and definitely answered so far as present scien- 
tific knowledge will permit, and thus information of great importance 
and value to the people of the whole country could be furnished from an 
authoritative and official source. 
In the establishment of the laboratory itadinida to this department, 
it was not, perhaps, designed that it should be used for private purposes 
to any great extent; and yet there is a vast amount of private work 
required, which, in a more liberal construction of the duties pertaining 
to this division, becomes of great public importance. Our country seems 
to be specially favored with minerals of all kinds, and there is scarcely 
a State or Territory in which there does not exist many having a fertiliz- 
ing value. To determine, therefore, by careful analysis, the value of 
these articles, and give an official approval or condemnation of them, 
would seem to be a duty which this department owes to those engaged 
in the development of such resources, as all such developments add to 
the wealth of the nation, and the advancement, prosperity, and happi- 
ness of the people. 
To more fully illustrate the importance of this proposition, I have but 
to refer to the work of this division as detailed in my last annual report 
and inthis volume. In the analysis of the bat guanos of Texas, samples 
of which were forwarded from near Galveston, the report of the chemist 
for the year 1877 gives the per cent. of fertilizing material contained 
therein, and shows from the samples analyzed and the extent of the de- 
posits that they represent a value of perhaps $20,000,000. These deposits 
are private property, and yet the subject becomes one of public mpor- 
tance to the locality in which they exist, as the vast sum here repre- 
sented must, in a measure, be distributed among many classes of people. 
HORTICULTURAL DIVISION. 
The labors of the Horticultural Division during the past year have 
been very closely confined to the propagation and distribution of eco- 
