11) 



Chapter II. 



TO THE NATIONAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

 From Minneapolis I journeyed to Ithaca where I spent some time at 

 Cornell, and thence to Columbia. Thereafter I returned to Washington 

 where I spent ten days in the National Department of Agriculture. It is 

 just seventy years since the first steps were taken in the United States to 

 aid agriculture through the Federal Government, And in the summer of 

 1839 an appropriation of $1,000 was set aside for the purpose of dis- 

 tributing seed and collecting agricultural statistics. What a wonderful 

 growth has been made in these seventy years ! For we find that the last 

 annual appropriation for this department alone was almost $13,000,000, 

 Avhile the staff numbers 10,186. To-day the efforts of the 

 department are being mainly directed to the conservation of 

 the national resources of the country, while at the same time 

 increasing the productivity of the field. The alpha and omega of this 

 great organisation is the practical application of modern science to the 

 service of the farmer. It can perhaps be best summed up in a homely 

 remark of the honoured Secretary,* who, on assigning new duties to an 

 expert said : " Don't tell me now about your laboratories. Tell me what 

 you are doing for the man at the plough, out in the fields, with his coat 

 off." 



In such a department it is plainly impossible, even if one had 

 several weeks for the purpose to see one tithe of the work of the different 

 divisions, and so I concentrated my attention entirely on those branches 

 which bear specially on dry-farming. 



In Washington I had the pleasure of again meeting Mr. E. C. Chilcott, 

 Agriculturist in charge of Dry_-land Agriculture Investigations, under the 

 Department of Agriculture. Before coming to Washington, Mr. 

 Chilcott was Professor of Agriculture and Geology in the South Dakota 

 Agricultural College and had a long and wide experience in dry-farming 

 in the Great Plains area. Mr. Chilcott was appointed to his present 

 position in July, 1905, and so the work of the National Department in 

 dry-land agriculture may be said to have begun at that time. Under 

 Mr. Chilcott's direction this work has expanded in a remarkable manner, 

 and already we find that eleven dry-land experiment stations have beeu 

 established, and several more will be started in the course of the next year 

 or so. The area over which these operations extend is truly enormous 

 and may be said to reach, roughly, from the Mississippi westward to the 

 Sierra Nevada, mountains in California, and the arid valleys of Oregon 

 and Washington, and from the international boundary line southward to 

 the Panhandle of Texas — in all a tract of country comprising about one 

 million square miles. 



The policy of the department is to work in cordial harmony with the 

 various State Governments and to supplement, but not to interfere with, 

 any work which may already be in progress. Thus we find that dry-land 

 experiment stations have now been established at the following points in 

 conjunction with the various States : — In North Dakota, at Williston, 

 Dickinson, and Edgeley ; in South Dakota, at Belief ourche ; in Nebraska. 



* The Hon. James Wilson who has been Secretary of Agriculture for a period of twelve 

 years, serving continuously under three Presidents. 



