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A tentative estimate of the Commissioner of Agriculture, report 1888, of 

 the products of agriculture, 1886, gives the farm value of the fruits of the 

 United States to be $175,000,000. 



This is equal to one half of the dairy products of the country; is more 

 than half our wheat crop; more than one fourth of the corn crop; is more 

 than double the oat crop; is more than double the wool crop; is about equal 

 to the wool, hemp, flax, tobacco, hops, sugar, syrup, honey, grass seeds, and 

 wines combined, and is nearly the value of all the vegetables grown. 



We export only about $1,000,000 in value. The consumption of fruit is 

 about $3 per annum per capita on our Commissioner's estimate of pro- 

 duction. 



If we could double the present consumption of fruit in this country it 

 would give California an income beyond what we now have of over $150,- 

 000,000, allowing the East and Oregon to take the balance, and it seems 

 not an extravagant hope that this increase will be attained. 



Our population is growing at the rate of nearly or quite three fourths of 

 a million people annually. Demand for the fruits of the earth goes on with 

 increased number of mouths to feed. 



Notwithstanding the importance of fruit culture to this country, there 

 has been no organized effort to aid it through our Agricultural Department 

 at Washington, until 1886. Mr. H. E. VanDeman in his second annual 

 report to the Commissioner of Agriculture (report 1888) says: "The year 

 1887 may really be said to be the first in which I have had an opportunity 

 to get the machinery of this division (Division of Pomology) in good work- 

 ing order." 



This great government, with more money than it knew what to do with, 

 started this division with an appropriation of $3,000 in 1886-7, and repeated 

 this munificent provision for 1887-8. 



One man was detailed in 1886 to serve the cause of practical and scien- 

 tific pomology for the United States. In 1887 the force consisted of a clerk, 

 and an artist occasionally, to make the few drawings found in the report, 

 and with this paltry $3,000 all the expenses of the division are borne, 

 including the salaries of the clerk and artist. Mr. VanDeman speaks of 

 several valuable papers that have been prepared, gratuitously, I suppose, 

 all of which await appropriations before they can be given to the world. 

 It is to be hoped that these valuable papers, and the matter they contain, 

 will not have fallen into innocuous desuetude before Congress awakens to 

 their importance. 



I want to digress a moment to record in the most public manner my 

 utter disrespect for the statesmanship that has been one hundred years 

 in realizing that agriculture was of sufficient importance to entitle it to a 

 Department of Government. In 1880 our census showed our agricultural 

 products to be of the value of $3,020,000,000; nearly $500,000,000 more 

 than Russia produced with her one hundred million population; nearly 

 $800,000,000 more than imperial Germany, and more than Austria, Italy, 

 Spain, Australia, and Canada combined. 



To-day our agricultural products amount to two thirds of all the prod- 

 ucts of the United States. They have made our nation great and power- 

 ful and independent. There is no food product, except possibly rice and 

 sugar, of which we do not produce a surplus, and of these there need be 

 no deficiency. 



No victory of peace or of war in all history is comparable to this. A 

 hundred years ago agriculture stood stationary where it had stood for a 

 thousand years before. The farmers of America have rescued agriculture 

 and given to the soil a new value; they have simplified the problem of 



