16 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



An international exposition at Paris took place at tliie time, and the 

 Department received $15,000 with which to make its exhibit. Pro- 

 fessor McMurtrie, the Department chemist, was placed in charge. A 

 creditable showing was made, though, as Commissioner Le Due stated, 

 the money was available too late to secure the best results. 



Experiments with sorghum, and other work.— The production of sugar, 

 both from sorghum and from beets, received much attention, and under 

 a special appropriation for machinery, etc., considerable experiments 

 with sorghum were conducted at Washington. Commissioner Le Due 

 was unable to obtain there a supply of properly grown canes, and asked 

 for the purchase of 1,000 acres of ground in the vicinitj' upon which 

 the Department might grow its own material for the experiments, and 

 conduct an experimental farm. He also wished that auxiliary exijeri- 

 mental farms should be established in each of the States. 



Irrigation, which had received some attention in the report of 1874, 

 was beginning to enlist much interest, and $20,000 was appropriated 

 by Congress in 1880 for experiments with artesian wells. 



Commissioner Le Due got an appropriation of $15,000 for investiga- 

 tion of tea culture, and leased a farm in South Carolina for the pur^jose 

 of experimenting, and to i)ropagate plants for general distribution. lie 

 believed that a few years would develop a large industry of tea grow- 

 ing in the Southern States. 



In spite of his opposition to the distribution of common seeds, Mr. 

 Le Due sent out, in 1877, 2,333,471 j)ackages, of which 943,530 went to 

 the district ravaged by grasshoppers. He also distributed 156,862 

 plants, cuttings, etc., from the proi^agating gardens, of which 70,000 

 were tea plants, 3,000 olives, 1,000 coflee, and 500 date palms. 



Commissioner Le Due recommended the erection of a larger Depart- 

 ment building on the same site. The plans approved by him were for 

 a structure in the form of a hollow rectangular parallelogram 500 feet 

 by 1,000 feet, with an enclosed court for a display of agricultural imple- 

 ments. The view of the front of the proposed building here (Plate I) 

 presented was published in the report of 1880. 



COMMISSIONER LOEING'S TERM. 



Dr. George B. Loring, of Massachusetts, was appointed Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture by President Garfield, and took charge on July 

 1, 1881 . He was educated as a physician, but was postmaster at Salem, 

 Mass , for four years ending in 1857, and from that time devoted his 

 time to scientific farming and politics. He was presideiit of the Xew 

 England Agricultural Society for twenty-seven years prior to his death 

 in 1891. 



In his first report he stated the work of the Dejiartment as he found 

 it as follows: Investigations of tea planting, of sugar making from 

 sorghum, of vegetable and animal fibers, of economic insects, of irriga- 

 tion by the use of artesian wells, of diseases of domestic animals, and 

 of the agricultural condition of the Pacific Coast. 



