In the first P. the office assumed the returns of the census of 1840 its estimates. It then observed the progress of the growth of each crop in each succeeding year in every district and county in the Union, from the planting of the seed until the harvest of the matured crop; carefully noting, day by day and week by week, all the causes which operated favorably or unfavorably upon it; the effect of the weather, the ravages of insects, the effects of blight and mildew, and decreased or additional cultivation. This extended system of observation it was enabled to adopt through the aid of agricultural and other newspapers and Journals, and of letters from distinguished practical agriculturists, received from every neighborhood in our widely extended country. To show the extent of this system of operation, it is only necessary to state the fact that the great number of 5,000 newspapers, journals, and letters were carefully read and examined in making up the report for the last year. It may, therefore, be safely assumed that no institution or association of individuals in the country had such extensive means at command for estimating the amount of agricultural products within the Union as were in the possession of the Patent Office. Of course, it is not pretended that the estimates of this office were mathematically precise and exact, for in relation to such subjects precision and exactness are absolutely impossible. It is only assumed for them that they approximated as near to precision and exactness as the nature of the subject rendered it possible to approach to certainty. But their general accuracy and value are sufficiently proved by the fact that they were received in this and foreign countries as the best and most reliable estimates of the amount of the agricultural products of this country that could be obtained from any source. And they are cited and referred to in public documents, and in the leading journals of trade and commerce, as the only authentic estimates of the crops of the United States worthy of reference and confidence. Assuming the general accuracy of those estimates, it is hardly necessary to speak of their value. The time has gone by when legislation for great communities is to be based upon theories or abstract axioms in political philosophy. Facts, now, are deemed the only solid foundation for the superstructures of the modern statesman. And without a knowledge of the statistics of a nation, which embrace every fact relating to its condition and welfare, physical, moral, or political, it is almost impossible to legislate wisely for its interests. And no statistical knowledge is more important than that which exhibits the resources of a nation, as indicated by the products of its labor. An important part of that knowledge the agricultural estimates of the Patent Office were designed to furnish. Another object of the agricultural report of the Patent Office was to collect and embody every fact within its reach, which tended to show the improvement and progress of agriculture in the United States during each year; and, in order to accomplish this result, so desirable and so valuable to the agriculturist, every new discovery in the science of agriculture, and those kindred and auxiliary sciences from which it derives its most essential aid— namely, geology, chemistry, and botany—and every new improvement and experiment in the practice of agriculture, in this and all foreign countries, were carefully noted, collected, and embodied in a form which enabled every intelligent citizen to see and comprehend the progress of that greatest and noblest occupation of man during the year. In order to perform this portion of its duties, this office was amply provided with the ablest and most approved publications of this country, England, Scotland, France, Germany, and Prussia, not only relating directly to the science of agriculture, but to all branches of science with which it had immediate or remote connexion. It also availed itself of the labors of eminent experimenters in our own country, who kindly and generously communicated to the head of the office the results of their labors and experiments. All this mass of valuable information, collected from a thousand different sources, was embodied and presented in a comparatively narrow-compass to the American agriculturist, and at a comparatively small expense to the treasury. I think it may be safely affirmed that in no other country in the world was so large an amount of valuable information collected and presented to the people at so little expense, the annual appropriation to this office for the purpose not exceeding $3,000 per annum. In proof of this remark I would refer to a single fact. The importance of the potato crop—the annual value of which is equal to one-half the value of the whole cotton crop of the Union—which has, during the last three years, been greatly injured by the ravages of that remarkable and fatal disease which has assailed the potato in the northern and middle States, and in most of the countries of Europe, rendered it, in my judgment, expedient to collect and embody every fact which would tend to throw light upon the origin and rogress of the disease, and if possible point out the remedy. With that view a large portion of the report of the last year was devoted to that subject, and a large amount of valuable information respecting it collected, and at very little expense. During the same year a commission, composed of eminent scientific gentlemen, was appointed by the British government to proceed to Ireland and investigate the potato disease as it appeared in that island. The expenses of the commission amounted to nearly $90,000; yet the results of the labors of that enlightened committee, which were very valuable, were all embodied in the agricultural report of the Patent Office, with twenty-fold as much more upon the same subject. The alarming nature of the calamity which had befallen the potato attracted the attention of many of the governments of Europe, but from none emanated publications containing so large an amount of valuable information upon the subject as the report from this office. The industry of this office in collecting information in reference to this subject enabled it to answer the inquiries of many of the governments of Europe. It is unnecessary to refer to other subjects connected with agriculture which were embraced in the reports of this office. It is believed that the value of the services of this office in relation to the interests of agriculture are appreciated by that great and intelligent class of the people engaged in agricultural pursuits, as would seem to appear from the expressions of numerous letters and public journals received at this office. If Congress had deemed it expedient to continue the report, several valuable improvements and additions to it were contemplated. A larger field of inquiry had been marked out than had been previously investigated. It was designed to embrace within the scope of future investigation additional crops and products, the amount of cultivated land in the Union, the statistics of the movements of agricultural products from the interior to the commercial marts and their export to foreign countries, the

prices of agricultural products, the wages of labor, &c., &c.; which, connected with the information previously furnished in a more condensed form, would not have failed to add to and increase the value of the report.

I am aware that it has been objected against the agricultural report

of the Patent Office, that it was unauthorized by the constitution, and

that, if permitted to be continued, it would endanger the liberties of the ople. Pop collecting and laying before the country valuable statistical informationi is unconstitutional, I have no argument with which to meet the objection; and I am equally unable to comprehend how the operations of this office, connected with agriculture, can endanger the government or the people. It has not its thousand agents scattered through the country, to impress its influence unduly upon the public mind; it has but little money to expend, and no patronage to bestow; its operations are silent and unseen, and they are as harmless as they are silent. Its whole expenditure in this branch of its duties amounts to but a few hundred dol

lars, and most of that small amount goes in payment of clerks, the pur

chase of seeds, and in subscriptions to agricultural publications: but these objections require no further answer. Nor should it be forgotten that the Patent Office has been instrumental, within the last few years, in introducing into the country many varieties of grains and vegetables; and it has aided much in introducing into the newly settled portions of the Union valuable varieties of grains and vegetables well known in those portions of the Union which have been longer settled, and are more highly cultivated ; and, although the popular names of the varieties of seeds it has distributed have given occasion for ingenious irony and dignified ridicule, from sources evidently but little acquainted with such humble yet important matters, no seeds have received names at this office for the purpose of imposition or deception, and none have been distributed which have borne names not familiarly known to every intelligent farmer and horticulturist in the country. All the varieties of grains and vegetable seeds distributed from this of. fice may not have been valuable. Many, from want of adaptation to soil or climate, may not have been successful—perhaps not germinated; but, if one valuable variety of either is introduced from abroad, or disseminated in parts of the Union in which it was not before known, the trifling cost of the operation is a million times repaid, and the cause of agriculture is promoted. It has also been objected that the agricultural duties of this office have been assumed without authority'of law, and were therefore a grave abuse and usurpation of power. It is not proper, perhaps, for me to vindicate the conduct of my predecessor under whose administration of the office it was introduced. It will not, however, be irrelevant to remark, that the subject had been a matter of serious consideration by the committee of the House of Representatives upon the Patent Office during the session of 1839–40, and the Commissioner was then requested, by the able chairman of that committee, to communicate to the committee “any information relative to the collection and distribution of seeds and plants; also, the practicability of obtaining agricultural statistics, with the addition of any suggestions deemed important in relation to those subjects.” That inquiry was answered by the Commissioner in the liberal and enlightened spirit in which it was made, and the collection of agricultural

statistics and the distribution of seeds and plants by the Patent Office were sanctioned and provided for by Congress, by small appropriations made each year, with one or two exceptions, since. That a department or bureau of government should devote a portion of its duties to the important interests of agriculture, is no new thing in the history of nations. Most, if not all of the leading governments of Europe have departments charged with these responsible duties, under the supervision of officers called Ministers of the Interior. And such a department seems to have been contemplated by President Washington and the earlier statesmen of the republic. In the message of General Washington to Congress, in December, 1796, an agricultural or home department is recommended by that revered and illustrious statesman and patriot. In 1812, it was again recommended in a most able and enlightened report, drawn up and presented to the House of Representatives by the Hon. Adam Seybert, chairman of the select committee appointed to inquire into the state of the Patent Office. And again, in 1817, the subject was considered by a select committee of the House of Representatives, which, through one of its members, the Hon. M. Hulbert, reported in favor of the establishment by Congress of a National Board of Agriculture. The views of the committee were expressed in the following brief and emphatic language: “The extent of territory, and the richness and consequent productiveness of the soil of our country, can never fail to invite and employ in the cultivation of the earth far the greater portion of American industry. “The interests of agriculture must therefore be primarily important to the people of the United States, and must at all times deserve the warm support and liberal patronage of government. The committee observe, with pleasure, that President Washington, in his speech to Congress of the 7th of December, 1796, recommended to that body the interests of agriculture, and the establishment of a national board to promote the Same. “In different parts of Europe, as well as in several States of this Union, such boards have been instituted under the auspices of government, and have diffused much useful information, and contributed largely, as the committee believe, to the public welfare. “After due consideration of the subject, the committee are of the opin. ion that it is advisable to establish at the seat of government a national board of agriculture, and report a bill for that purpose.” It is not recommended, nor is it desired by the undersigned, that any such department, or national board of agriculture, should be instituted by this government. The practices of other enlightened governments are referred to only to show that the exercise of such functions by government is not without precedent, nor without utility. The concurring testimony of a very large number of intelligent citizens from every State and district in the Union, received at this office, furnishes convincing proof of the beneficial influences of the agricultural reports of the Patent Office. They have been distributed, through the agency of Congress, to every district in the Union ; they have penetrated every neighborhood, and been read in almost every family; and they, have awakened an interest upon the subject of agriculture among the intelligent farming classes of our population not before exhibited nor felt. If they

have not always led to efforts to improve, they have produced in the mind even of the humbler agriculturist a conviction of the true dignity of his noble avocation, and of its first and transcendent importance among the great interests of his country. If they had produced no other effect, the money which they have cost would not have been idly expended.

Nor should it be forgotten that it is the only expenditure which has been made by Congress for the especial benefit of the agricultural classes; the only expenditure for an interest in the pursuits of which ten-sold the amount of capital is invested that is invested in any other pursuit; many times the amount of value annually produced that is produced by any other interest; and many times the number of persons employed that are employed in all the other great interests of the country put together. Yet how much is expended, and how much time is employed, in legislating for those other interests, and how little for agriculture.

All which is respectfully submitted.

EDMUND BURKE,

Commissioner of Patents. Hon. John W. DAvis, Speaker of the House of Representatives.