AGRICULTURAL BUREAU. 329 



proportion of the natural wealth. The importance of 

 drawing the national attention to this right arm of the 

 State has not been wholly overlooked by the authorities 

 at Washington during the last two or three years, 

 though its interests have been consulted in an indirect 



o 



manner only. The power of granting patents is a right 

 of the Federal Government, and a Board of Commis 

 sioners of Patents, with a Museum of Models of Inventions, 

 has for some time existed at Washington. The report 

 of this board presented to Congress, and printed for 

 general distribution, in addition to the descriptions of 

 new machinery and of patent processes, has gradually 

 been made to embrace almost the whole range of rural 

 affairs also, both practical and theoretical. Hence, for 

 two or three years, the report of the Commissioners of 

 Patents has been more valuable to the statist and rural 

 economist than to the mechanic. The incongruity of 

 this circumstance, with the confessed importance and 

 practical value of the agricultural part of this report, has 

 doubtless been one reason for the institution of a specially 

 agricultural department under the Secretary of State. 

 This bureau will hereafter present its own report to 

 Congress, separated from extraneous matter, and em 

 bracing topics which that of the Patent Office could not 

 overtake. 



The plan of this department, still immature, is intended 

 to be made conformable to the lights of the age. The 

 political economy, the statistics, the theory and the prac 

 tice of the rural arts, in all their departments, are to be 

 embraced as the organisation becomes completed. A 

 museum of implements and seeds, a depot of foreign seeds 

 for general distribution, a chemist and a laboratory of 

 research, an active literary officer well acquainted with 

 practical agriculture, to digest and methodise what others 

 prepare for the annual report of the department, these, 

 under the direction of the Secretary of State, are some 



