12 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



wounding " the " beautiful skin " which God has given the murphies, moved the 

 tender heart of the Editor and prevailed with him to publish a theory in which 

 he could not agree to believe, we may presume his sagacious doubts as to the 

 soundness of the Shaw theory were not participated by the compiler of the Ke- 

 port. But perhaps not finding much that was new, plausible or important, in 

 the files of the office, he may have considered it his duty to see how large a mass 

 could be made up out of all that had been published in any shape or form. Cer- 

 tain it is that of the 230 pages on this single topic, very little of it made there 

 its first appearance, and all of value that was republished might have been 

 comprised in tv/dily pages. 



But, after all-, this huge Report will serve to give great iveight to other Congres- 

 sional precedents, which the friends of agricultural instruction will not fail to 

 remember and to cherish. It will serve as a standing proof that Congress re- 

 cognizes its fower over this subject — that it is within its province and Constitu- 

 tional sphere of action to make appropriations out of the common treasure of the 

 country for the diffusion of agricultural knowledge as well as the knowledge of 

 Astronomy, of War, and of Navigation, by the establishment of Observatories 

 and military and naval schools and academies ; and though it would be a 

 strange organization of Government which should preclude such power in the 

 first, and grant it in the other cases, still these Patent-Office precedents are 

 to be hailed by the friends of the plow as so much gained. The principle is es- 

 tablished, as far as they go. If Congress can appropriate $3,000 or $30,000 or 

 $100,000 for the collection, increase, and diff'usion of agricultural knoAvledge at 

 all, the mere mode and form of doing it becomes a subordinate question. By 

 whatever influence or management Congress may have been prevailed upon to 

 exert, and the Executive to sanction the power, still there is the principle ac- 

 knowledged ; there stands the precedent ; and now, whether it shall be used in a 

 sneaking, left-handed manner, or whether Agriculture shall be openly encouraged 

 as recommended by Washington and Jeff'erson — whether a Department shall be 

 created for its benefit, as for interests and branches of industry and art that bear 

 no comparison with it in productiveness or dignity, is a question to be settled be- 

 tween those who would place it on a footing corresponding with its contribu- 

 tions to national wealth and its support of all other interests on the one part, and 

 those who, on the other, are content to have it and all that appertains to it stuck 

 away t?i a pigeon-hole of the Patent-Office ! an office highly useful in itself, and 

 against the proper administration of which we have not now, and never have 

 had, a word to say. Still we shall permit no search after ephemeral popularity 

 or fear of power to drive from our memory the fact that while it presumes to take 

 under its patronizing wing a great national interest for which Washington re- 

 commended a separate Department, this Patent-Oflice is itself but an appendage 

 or bureau of one, and justly complains, we have no doubt, of having labors to 

 perform in its proper sphere, in mass and magnitude, beyond the capacity of the 

 force allowed by law. We do not say that it should not be, itself, an independ- 

 ent Department as respects the talents necessary to its administration in a manner 

 to do honor to the country and to promote the great ends of industrial improve- 

 ment. In these respects we should place it far above the Post-Office Depart- 

 ment, which has been, very improperly and perniciously for the public interests, 

 and very absurdly on every account, "ranged into the Cabinet." As to the actual 

 head of the Patent Office, we take it for granted and have no doubt but he is a 

 gentleman and a scholar. Estimating its functions very highly as we do, we 



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