al Bhs rte, ee, ae PM 
\ Pea lis 
“4 
-10 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
endowed department, fully authorized to employ scientific 7 
and specialists in its several lines of investigation at just and reason- 
able compensation, fully equipped with the latest and most approved — ck 
apparatus, with conveniently arranged work-shops and safe and — 
healthful surroundings. If it is wise to prepare for war in time of 
4 
; 
peace, shall we not give a thought at least to famine in time of plenty? — | 
Our farming population i is not always to enjoy the blessings of the 
returns from a virgin soil. Science and sense are to be the hand- 
maidens of our future agriculture and commerce, and it is not too 
soon for us to anticipate what the requirements are to be if weareto — 
continue in our present state of agricultural independence and su- 
premacy. 
The salaries paid in this Department for scientific and special work 
are not in proportion to those paid in other branches of Government 
and in private institutions for work of a like responsibility. During — 
the year other Departments of the Government, as well as a State 
‘agricultural institution, have been enabled to take from the chemical 
division of this Department three of its best chemists and transfer 
them at largely increased salaries. A chemist, or any other employé, 
ought to be worth as much in this Department as in any other; but 
the equalization will only come when the Department has a well- 
defined, distinct status, where its needs and requirements will have 
that recognition and respect which are accorded to the older Depart- 
ments. 
It has been my aim during the year to continue established lines 
of investigation, and to inaugurate new ones for which a necessity 
appeared to exist in the progress of sgh. of the Department 
and of national agriculture. Five new sections have been organized 
during the present administration. 
The Department was established to subserve the various interests 
and industries of agriculture. Plants and seeds that are the germs” 
of future rural industries have been introduced; experiments that 
are to cheapen and facilitate production, and those that may have an 
exceedingly important bearing upon our industrial economy and 
national wealth, have been made; organized effort has been essayed 
to secure early and accurate fatommiacign of the crop products, to give 
the isolated producer all the information which the buyer can possi- 
bly obtain; and various practical applications of the latest discoveries 
of science, that are needed to relieve the burden of toil, have either 
been initiated already or form a part of a vast array of investigation 
which only awaits the necessary encouragement on the part of the 
legislative branch of the Government. 
Nothing better illustrates the present status of the Department 
than the gratifying demand for its various official reports. No less 
than 380,800 copies of these have been published and distributed the 
past year—a record which exceeds anything within the history of the 
