362 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Dec, 
National Board of Agriculture. 
Editors of the Cultivator —I recently pre¬ 
pared a paper for The Cultivator, upon the sub¬ 
ject of the establishment, in the National Depart¬ 
ment of the Interior at Washington, of a Bureau 
of Agriculture, for the Promotion of the great in¬ 
terest of Agricultural Improvement, in this Union. 
I submitted my communication to the consideration 
of a few friends, who advised me to lay the matter 
before the Legislature of Vermont, now in session, 
for their approbation and recommendation to the 
General Government. I did so; I am happy to in¬ 
form you that it met with universal favor. The 
paper has assumed the form of the following Re¬ 
port, which, together with the accompanying Re¬ 
solutions, were passed by the General Assembly of 
Vermont, as you will see below. F. Holbrook. 
Montpelier, Ft., Oct. 18, 1849. 
Report. 
The founders of our government were desirous 
fot the organization of a Home Department, devo¬ 
ted to the fostering and encouragement of Agricul¬ 
ture, and other Industrial Arts; but it seems that 
for want of proper persons to organize and manage 
such a Department, it was laid aside. 
At a later period, Washington recommended an 
organization, entitled “ A Home Department of 
Agriculture.” His conceptions upon this subject, 
_like everything else emanating from his practical 
far-seeing mind,—are exactly to the purpose, com¬ 
prehending, more or less directly, about all that 
need be said in its favor. They are as follows:— 
il It will not be doubted that with reference ei¬ 
ther to individual or national welfare, Agriculture 
is of primary importance. In proportion as na¬ 
tions advance in population, and other circumstan¬ 
ces of maturity, this truth becomes more apparent, 
and renders the cultivation of the soil more and 
more an object of public patronage. Institutions 
for promoting it grow up, supported by the public 
purse, and t.o what object can it be dedicated with 
greater propriety ? Among the means which have 
been employed to this end, none have been attend¬ 
ed with greater success than the establishment of 
Boards, composed of proper characters, charged 
with collecting and diffusing information, and ena¬ 
bled by premiums and small pecuniary aid, to en¬ 
courage and assist a spirit of discovery and im¬ 
provement, by stimulating to enterprise aud expe¬ 
riment, and by drawing to a common centre , the re¬ 
sults every where, of individual skill and observa¬ 
tion and by spreading them thence over the whole 
nation. Experience has accordingly shown, that 
they are very cheap instruments of immense na¬ 
tional benefits.” 
The methods of agriculture pursued by our fa¬ 
thers, in a new country, with a virgin soil and a 
sparse population, were, perhaps, necessarily rude 
and improvident; but with a rapid, and unprece¬ 
dented increase of population, improvements in til¬ 
lage have not advanced with corresponding steps, 
or"generally speaking, been of long standing. By 
no more than a-half century of bad cultivation the 
soil of the older States has become either, entirely 
run down or greatly impoverished of fertility $ and 
insects, blights, noxous weeds, Ste., the usual at¬ 
tendants of imperfect tillage, have increased and 
become accumulated to an alarming extent. 
But the evil does not stop here. Too many of 
our intelligent, enterprising young men,—observing 
the sad condition of the soil, and trained to false 
impressions,—suppose that the agricultural profes¬ 
sion, instead of being an open field for the efforts 
of science to improve, is but an arena, fit only to bo 
occupied by the illiterate and unenterprising, under 
the guidance of blind tradition. They accordingly 
press in masses into other callings, filling them to 
overflowing, and leaving the “ Art of Arts,” to 
its fate. 
The same process of deterioration which has been 
so nearly completed in the Atlantic States, is now 
going on at the West. Although nature, by a long 
and a most liberal process, has endowed the lands 
of that section with a fertility elsewhere unknown, 
still they can be impoverished by the hand of man. 
The gradation to the same climax which has ob¬ 
tained in the older States may be slower, yet, in 
the nature of things, it must be sure. Many of the 
occupants of those now generous soils, under the 
same mistaken impression that they are inexhausti¬ 
ble, which possessed the first settlers of the more 
fertile tracts of the Eastern States, will probably 
live long enough to find that, under a constantly 
depleting and careless husbandry, what has been 
done can be done again.—These remarks are of 
course subject to exceptions; but they are still 
quite t.oo generally true. 
While this rapid destruction of fertility has been 
going on among us, several of the States of Europe 
have been as rapidly advancing in productiveness. 
There, Agriculture is fostered and encouraged by 
Government; men of the first attainments, and in 
the highest walks of life, devote their time and ta¬ 
lents to its improvement; the lights of several sci¬ 
ences have been shed upon it; lands, under the cul¬ 
tivation of ages previous, have been so changed 
within sixty or seventy years past, by a judicious 
rotation of crops, and a system of manuring adapt¬ 
ed to the soil and the crop, as to increase three¬ 
fold in productiveness; thousands of acres of wet 
lands, heretofore of little or no value, have been 
drained, and are now under profitable cultivation; 
agricultural schools and colleges have been estab¬ 
lished; and the breeding of agricultural animals has 
been carried to so high perfection in England and 
Scotland, that any other breeds in the known world 
may be improved by a cross with them. 
It may be said that such high cultivation cannot 
be profitable here. Neither can we afford to pur¬ 
sue our exhausting system of cultivation much fur¬ 
ther ; for the decreased and decreasing crops will 
not remunerate our labor. If the state of things 
in our country will not warrant high farming, to 
the extent to which it is now carried in the coun¬ 
tries spoken of, we certainly are warranted in the 
employment of far more enlightened and correct 
principles of tillage than are now common. 
It has been well said, that 11 a prosperous agri¬ 
cultural district is not without patriots to defend 
it;” and it is undoubtedly true, that a high state 
of intelligence and scientific knowledge among our 
farmers, would conduce, more than anything else, 
to the stability and perpetuity of our Republic, and 
to the rapid and full development of its vast agri¬ 
cultural capabilities. We may truly say, in this con¬ 
nection, that 11 every accession which man gains to 
his knowledge, is also an accession to his power; 
and extends the limits of his empire over the world 
which he inhabits.” 
About three-fourths of the population of our 
country are engaged in tilling the soil. Legislation 
to promote the prosperity of this interest, directly 
benefits the greater portion of the people; and in¬ 
directly, but not less surely, the remainder also. 
Now our legislators and others have not been want 
Lng heretofore in eulogy upon the antiquity, digni* 
