INTRODUCTORY 21 



critical period of the Civil War. That the new Republican 

 party, which had just come into full power, was in close 

 alliance with the farming interests of the North is further 

 attested by the passage, in this same year, of two other 

 far-reaching acts in the interests of agriculture: that of 

 June, 1862, called the ' Morrill Act,' after its principal 

 sponsor in the Senate, granting large tracts of public lands 

 for the establishment of an agricultural college in each of 

 the States ; and the homestead law, which provided for giv- 

 ing public land to the individual who had occupied and im- 

 proved it, instead of paying a purchase price. 



The act of May 15, 1862,^^ generally known as the 'or- 

 ganic act,' states, after the usual introduction and provision 

 for the establishment of a Department of Agriculture, as 

 already indicated, that the general designs and duties of such 

 department " shall be to acquire and to diffuse among the 

 people of the United States useful information on subjects 

 connected with agriculture in the most general and compre- 

 hensive sense of that word, and to procure, propagate, and 

 distribute among the people new and valuable seeds and 

 plants." The act further provides for the appointment of a 

 Commissioner of Agriculture at a salary of three thousand 

 dollars and a chief clerk at two thousand dollars, and briefly 

 outlines the duties and procedure of these officers. 



The new department was established and began its opera- 

 tions at once. The agricultural appropriation act for the 

 fiscal year 1863 carried eighty thousand dollars, and the 

 entire amount was expended. 



That the work of the department found favor with the 

 people and Congress from the beginning is shown by the 

 fact that its appropriations were increased from year to 

 year even while the war continued. When peace was estab- 

 lished, the department's activities soon began to expand to 

 cover new fields and to include new subjects, some of which 

 were probably never contemplated l)y those who had sanc- 

 tioned the organic act, broad and general as were some of 



2« 12 Stat. L. 387. 



