80 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



The governors of states recommended to the legislatures 

 to take such action as would advance this great utility. 

 Our presidents have recommended the subject to the con- 

 sideration of Congress. Washington, who, whatever he was 

 besides, was a farmer by nature, took a deep interest in 

 this subject, and in his last annual message recommended 

 to Congress that appropriations should be made, to en- 

 courage an interest in it. President Jefferson in his first in- 

 augural, when enumerating the objects of government, 

 puts the encouragement of agriculture among them. But 

 so negligent had Congress been in fostering the interests 

 of this great phase of the national life, that President Lin- 

 coln, in his first annual message December 3, 1861, said 

 that "Agriculture, confessedly the largest interest of the 

 nation, has not a department, nor even a bureau, but a 

 clerkship only, assigned to it in the government. While 

 I make no suggestions as to details, I venture the opinion 

 that an agricultural and statistical bureau might profit- 

 ably be organized." In pursuance of this suggestion Con- 

 gress passed an act May 4, 1862, creating a Bureau of 

 Agriculture. The President immediately set about organ- 

 izing it and refers to it in all his annual messages; and in 

 the very last one he speaks of it as "peculiarly the people's 

 department, in which they feel more directly concerned than 

 in any other. I commend it to the continued attention 

 and fostering care of Congress." 



The next step in the national recognition of the import- 

 ance of agriculture was an act of Congress, February 11, 

 1889, making the bureau a department, and the commis- 

 sioner a secretary, with a seat in the President's cabinet. 



While these steps were being taken by the national 



