DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 607 



On the 2ist of January, 1839, Hon. Isaac Fletcher, of Ver- 

 mont, chairman of the Committee on Patents of the House of 

 Representatives, addressed a letter to Commissioner Ellsworth, 

 requesting the communication of information relative to the col- 

 lection and distribution of seeds and plants ; also, relative to the 

 practicability of obtaining agricultural statistics. To this letter 

 of inquiry the commissioner responded on the following day, 

 reciting the action already taken by him to further the cause of 

 agriculture, and assigning many reasons why his previous recom- 

 mendations should be adopted. In this communication the 

 commissioner suggested that "arrangements could be made 

 for the exhibition of different kinds of grain, exotic and indig- 

 enous, in the new Patent Office." In the closing hours of the 

 Twenty-fifth Congress (act of 3d March, 1839), tne commis- 

 sioner was gratified by the passage of an appropriation of 

 $1000, to be taken from the Patent-Office fund, for the pur- 

 pose of collecting and distributing seeds, prosecuting agricult- 

 ural investigations, and procuring agricultural statistics. Thus 

 originated the agricultural division of the Patent Office. 



In his annual report of the following year, dated January i, 

 1840, Commissioner Ellsworth stated that the diplomatic corps 

 of the United States had been solicited to aid in procuring val- 

 uable seeds, and that the officers of the navy had been requested 

 to convey to the Patent Office such seeds as might be offered. 

 As the sixth census was then about to be taken, agricultural 

 statistics were deferred until its completion. In the next 

 report (January i, 1841), it was stated that 30,000 packages of 

 seeds had been distributed during the preceding year, and that 

 the agricultural statistics, based upon the returns of the census, 

 were being compiled. "The importance of an annual report 

 of the state of the crops in different sections, as a preventive 

 against monopoly, and a good criterion to calculate the state of 

 exchange," was commended to the consideration of Congress, 

 and from this suggestion were evolved, in time, the annual agri- 

 cultural reports. 



In the report for 1841 were given tabular estimates of the 

 products of agriculture in the United States in that year. 

 These estimates filled two pages, and were based upon the 

 census returns of 1840, supplemented by such additional infor- 



