REPORT 
or 
THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
Washington, D. C., December 1, 1870. 
Sie: In submitting the ninth report of the Commissioner of Agricul- 
ture, I have the gratification of representing the foundation interest of 
the country as prosperous and productive in a high degree—an interest 
which is the source of supply of the physical wants of all classes, and 
the nursery of energy and virtue for the equally essential recuperation, 
from waste and enervation, of the less healthful pursuits of life. 
The season has been one calculated to test severely the capabilities of 
our soils. On the eastern slopes of the Alleghanian system, excessive 
rains at a critical period were followed by a lengthened drought; and 
throughout a large area of other sections of the country, unusual eleva- 
tion of temperature has been combined with a diminished precipitation 
of rain, seriously affecting the vitality of plants weakened by starvation, 
shallow culture, overgrowing weeds or grasses, or imperfect drainage. 
Local decrease of small grains has resulted from these causes, counter- 
balanced in part by local compensations from climatic or other influences; 
yet the effect of high temperature has been so conducive to the growth 
of maize, the most valuable crop in our arable culture, the predominant 
element not only of the breadstuffs but of the meat production of the 
country, that the material for food supplies of the year is greater than 
usual. . 
The fact of increased production in a season remarkable for excessive 
heat, in a country assumed to be liable to injurious extremes of temper- 
ature and seasons of continued aridity, affords strong evidence of the 
available depth and fertility of our arable lands. The local diminution 
of yield enforces many a lesson of needed improvement in the drainage, 
comminution, and amelioration of imperfect soils. 
An examination in detail of the facts of this year’s Shaul aa in the 
light of enlarged agrier ultural experience and of science applied to 
husbandry, would furnish hints to improvement and aids to progress, 
which, if adopted generally, would increase the value of farm produc- 
tion to the extent of five hundred millions of dollars. It would do 
more—it would. tend to the increase of the fertility of the soil, which 
now, in nine farms out of ten, is annually decreasing, anal it would pro- 
 portionably advance its intrinsic as well as market value. 
