SECRETARY'S REPORT. 33 



This report was accepted, and it was voted that the secretary 

 he authorized to transmit the report of the committee to the 

 legislature. 



Dr. Bartlett afterwards submitted to the Board the following 

 as a supplementary 



REPORT: 



The committee to whom was referred the investigation of the 

 diseases Avhich have for many years heen so destructive to the potato 

 crop throughout the world, beg leave to offer a partial report of the 

 results to which they have been able to arrive. The importance of 

 the subject to the general interests of the inhabitants of the civilized 

 portion of the world, and its very close connection with the pecuniary 

 interests of the farmer, have been duly felt by us, and we have 

 labored perseveringly, though quietly, to carry on our investigations 

 in the manner which our own judgments taught us was likely to be 

 the only one through which the truth could be reached, and we regret 

 to say that we have received, from the ignorance of those whose inter- 

 ests are most deeply involved in our success, more sneers at what 

 they regarded as our folly, than encouragement and aid in our work. 

 We had hoped that an examination of the papers in the State depart- 

 ment, communicated by the various claimants of the bounty of the 

 State, would furnish us with such records of facts as would enable us 

 to form some well digested plan of action in our investigation. But 

 we were doomed in this expectation to be grievously disappointed, 

 and we are constrained to say that we do not believe a more degrad- 

 ing record of ignorance of the first principles of natural science can 

 be found than those papers, as a whole, manifest, although we should 

 cheerfully except from this condemnation a few which seem to have 

 heen Avritten with something of the modesty which always character- 

 izes the cultivated writer. 



Failing to find the information which we needed in these sources 

 from which we had a right to expect it, we prepared and distiibuted 

 in large numbers, circulars asking the aid of the farmers throughout 

 the United States, in the collection of facts upon the subject com- 

 mitted to our hands, and here again we have not only failure and 

 disappointment, since out of the very large number distributed in all 

 directions, we have received returns from less than thirty, and those 

 are mainly from the applicants for the premium ofi'ered by the State. 

 We cannot but regard tjhis want of interest on the part of the agricul- 

 tural portion of society as somewhat disgraceful, and as indicative of 

 6* 



