el 
“gi 
, 
eB Os oli 
OF THE 
COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
COMMISSIONER’S OFFICE, 
Washington, D. C., November 15, 1887. 
To the PRESIDENT: 
I respectfully submit my third annual report as Commissioner of 
Agriculture. 
The year has been crowned with plenty, though in a large and fer- 
tile district, in the heart of the summer, the heayens were brass and 
the earth ashes. Hven fervid suns and cloudless skies have failed to 
convert the fat areas of alluvium into a desert. When a field of 
maize, with only a sprinkling of water from planting, is able to ma- 
ture 40 bushels to the acre, nothing but careless cultivation can 
destroy the crop, It isa truth, which observation affirms and reit- 
erates, that natural disabilities, however heavy, are less injurious 
than bad cultivation, and can be measurably obviated by the intelli- 
gence, alertness, and skill of the good farmer, It is the crop of the 
poor cultivator that is burned with drought, eaten by insects, or 
caught by the frost; if the skilled husbandman suffers a partial loss, 
his large remainder sold at appreciated prices nets a fair return. 
The last seven years have been, with one exception, seasons of less 
than medium yields of corn, the great American tillage crop, and yet 
there has been no famine ; exportation to Europe has been only lim- 
ited by enhancement of price; and the home consumption of this 
one crop has averaged nearly twice as many bushels per capita as the 
Kuropean consumption of al) the cereals in the same time. The 
great American desert of thirty years ago continues, as for several 
consecutive seasons, to pour its wealth of production into the na- 
tion’s granary of maize, and stands in rate of yieldamong the most 
favored districts of the land. 
The food question which most agitates the farmers of other coun- 
tries is American competition in the wheat markets of the world. 
In the western nations of Kurope such competition has been serious. 
7 
