REVIEWS REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS. 239 



REVIEWS. 



Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1856. — Agi'i- 

 culture. Washington : 185/. 



We have here a volume consisting of upwards of five hundred 

 pages, well printed and profusely illustrated. It furnishes another of 

 the many examples constantly presented to us, of the public-spirited 

 liberality with which the funds of the United States are expended on 

 objects of general interest and value, lying altogether beyond the 

 range of political influence. Such reports frequently embody matter 

 of great importance. We shall endeavor to indicate the nature of this 

 very miscellaneous but highly 'useful volume. The subjects treated of 

 are various, including several of general interest and of national im- 

 portance ; such as the origin, histoiy and habits of the domesticated 

 animals ; birds injurious to agriculture ; improvement of land ; drain- 

 age, &c. ; fertilisers ; the culture of wheat, potatoes, Chinese yam, 

 sugar, &c. ; Textile and forage crops ; hemp, cotton, &c. ; grafting 

 and budding ; reports on fruit culture ; wine making ; meteor- 

 ology, &c. 



It appears that the Government of the United States appropriated 

 in 1856 the munificent sum of seventy-five thousand dollars for agri- 

 cultural purposes ; upwards of twenty thousand of which were expended 

 in the purchase and freight of foreign seeds for experimental purposes 

 in various sections of the Union. Nearly eighteen thousand dollars 

 were absorbed by salaries and expenses incurred in the preparation of 

 the Report ; two hundred and ten thousand copies of which were 

 ordered to be printed at the expense of Congress. It was deemed ex- 

 pedient to afford to the planters of Louisiana and adjoining States, the 

 means of replenishing the stock of cane from v/hich sugar has been 

 heretofore solely obtained. The sugar crop has for years been gradu- 

 ally dim-inishing in the southern States, in consequence, it is thought, 

 of the cane being carried further north than its native and congenial 

 climate. To remedy this evil ten thousand dollars were expended in 

 procuring fresh plants from South America, in numbers sufficient to 

 enable every sugar planter within a few years to introduce the new and 

 vigorous plants, and so to displace entirely such as are old and deteri- 

 orated. Changes of this nature in the several departments of culti- 

 vation, when made with judgment, are usually attended with the 

 happifSt results. 



