304 Editors’ Table. | [April, 
impossible to obtain exact returns. But it will be seen that for 
the interests involved, the Government has been liberal in its 
appropriations for géological investigations, and it will be the best 
economy to be still more liberal than in the past. 
How much has the General Government expended for our 
national agriculture, whose products amounted, in 1870, to 
$2,447,538,658, the returns being in the nature of things far 
more reliable and exact than in the other departments enumerated? 
We would answer emphatically that beyond laying out the agri- 
cultural grounds and erecting the Department building at Wash- 
ington, distributing seeds (the larger share of which were of the 
commonest kinds of flowers and vegetables obtained at bargains 
of seedsmen), the amounts voted by the Government in this direc- 
tion have not, in the opinion of agricultural experts, or of others 
well qualified to judge, been at all commensurate with what ought 
or should have been voted. We do not deny that considerable 
ood has been accomplished by the Agricultural Department, 
common-sense agriculture. 
We would ask if the time is not coming for a practical biologi- 
cal survey of the United States commensurate with the immense 
interests involved, and on a scale analogous to the geological and 
coast surveys and the signal bureau? At least cannot a slight 
beginning be made in this direction? 
The average annual loss to the nation from the attacks of 
injurious plants and insects and other animals, amounts a 
moderate calculation to $300,000,000. A large proportion of this 
loss or waste could, by human means, be saved and added to the 
national capital. Within a period of four years a few of the 
Western States suffered a-loss of $200,000,000, by the attacks of 
the Rocky mountain locust. -The State of Illinois lost in one 
year (1864) $73,000,000 by the chinch bug; the annual average 
loss to the cotton crop is estimated at not less than $15,000 
or $20,090,000. uch figures and estimates could be multiplied. 
With a proper reorganization or enlargement of the Agricul- 
tural Department, under the direction of a commissioner of intel- 
ligence and scientific attainments, these scientific investigations 
might be begun and carried on, or if this department is hopelessly 
fated to go on as in the past, the work might be superintended 
by the Smithsonian Institution, if not carried on under the Interior 
Department. However this may be, there is urgent need of intel- 
ligent extended botanical and entomological investigations. In 
