No. 216.] €37 



Institute Rooms, May 11th, 1847. 



Mr. Meigs. Mr. Handcock presents a published account of the ex- 

 periments made in the culture of the potato, by M. Zander of Boit- 

 zenberg, for six years past. 



Translation. 



You are desired to address your answer under cover to Mons. the 

 Minister of Commerce and Agriculture; address on the second en- 

 velope, Messrs the Members of the Royal and Central Society of 

 Agriculture, Paris. 



Royal Central Society of .Agriculture, Paris, March 10th, 1847. 



Mr. President — The society has received indirectly, printed docu- 

 ments, containing details relative to the peculiar alteration in the 

 character of the potato, in 1844, in some parts of the United States. 

 These reports have been very useful to us in our own researches on 

 the same subject in France, and we now desire to obtain all your 

 reports on this subject for the last two years. I therefore pray you 

 Mr. President, to have the goodness to address to this society, all 

 the information which you have been able to collect on this sub- 

 ject in 1845 and 1846. You will doubly oblige me by transmitting 

 such documents as promptly as possible, and with all that detail 

 which is so desirable, whether in manuscript or published form. 

 This may be done with certainty and celerity through the medium 

 of the Consular Agency of France in the United States, and Mons. 

 the Minister of Foreign Affairs. 



Professor Mapes. The iron plough has not been in use more than 

 eighty years. Had our government given a premium worthy of the 

 object, say one thousand dollars years ago, great advantages to our 

 crops would have been produced. An estimate is easily made by no- 

 ting the vast amounts of our crops, and admitting that only one or 

 a few per cent was made. Thus in 1817, our agriculture was worth 

 $658,000,000. In 1846, Indian corn was 600,000,000 of bushels, 

 which at 50 cents a bushel, is $300,000,000. Now if a Home De- 

 partment for agriculture, as Washlrgton earnestly recommended, had 

 existed, and by its action an improvement of only one per cent on 

 the crops had been obtained, the country would have received a bene- 

 fit of probably some fifty millions of dollars a year. Ten thousand 

 dollars a year distributed properly, would have produced such a re- 

 sult. But our government has not as yet directly appropriated a sol- 

 itary dollar. 



