Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 395 



response to the commissioner of agriculture. 

 Mr. J. B. Lyman then read the following communication to the 

 Commissioner of Agriculture, which was ordered to be printed, and 

 a copy forwarded to the Commissioner: 



"KOOMS OF THE AMERICAN" INSTITUTE FaRMERS' ClUB, ) 



New York City, Jan. 21, 1868. 5 



"To lion. Horace Capron, Commissioner of ^Agriculture, Washington, D.C.: 



" Dear Sir — The undersigned committee, appointed by the Chair- 

 man of the Club to prepare a reply to the recent communication 

 received by the Society from the Commissioner of Agriculture, in 

 answer to his very full and suggestive letter, and on behalf of the 

 Farmers' Club, take this occasion to say: 



" That we consrratulate the Commissioner on his accession to the 

 control of a very important department, affording him such rare 

 opportunity to promote interests so fundamental, so wide and so 

 perpetual as those of agriculture. We reciprocate the sentiment 

 expressed by the Commissioner, and indorse especially that part of 

 his letter which refers to the importance of hearty cooperation 

 between the Department at Washington and all State and local 

 societies throughout the country. We think gobd husbandry can 

 be much promoted by cordial reciprocity between our Club and 

 the Department; and w^e will endeavor at all times to carry out 

 any suggestions that we may receive from the Commissioner, and 

 do all in our power to disseminate any information or valuable 

 matter of any description with which we may be favored. 



" We think the Department has hitherto been shorn of much of 

 its possible power for good by want of free, natural and open com- 

 munication with the masses of the agricultural population. Great 

 numbers of the reports, crowded with valuable matter and replete 

 with instruction which the farmer can find nowhere else, have been 

 tossed in piles in the corners of postofEces, have gathered dust in 

 the offices of lawyers and local politicians, or been sold by Con 

 gressmen for waste paper. 



" We suggest that the leading metropolitan journals of the 

 country, reporting the action of agricultural societies, offer to the 

 Department a more certain and trustworthy avenue for reaching 

 the people of this nation with the facts, statistics and records of 

 experience which it is the office of the Department of Agriculture 

 to collect. • * 



*' Speaking for this part of the country, and from the informa- 

 tion which comes before us in our weekly sessions, we take this 



