Excerpt from United Australia, Vol. 1: January, 1901 It is quite true that the Department in its present form was not founded until 1862. The real start was made in 1839, when a branch of the Patents Ofiice was set apart for the collection and publication of agricultural statistics, so that nearly a quarter ofa century had to elapse before the higher level was reached. But President W'ashington, in his annual message to Congress in 1796, struck the right note when he pleaded for the establishment of a national Board of Agriculture, and said that one of the functions of such a Board was to encourage and assist a spirit of discovery and improvement by stimulating to enterprise and experiment. He was a member of the first Agricultural Society organised in the United States, formed at Philadelphia in March, 1785, and he could see what might be done by a strong central body established on proper lines and adequately provided for. It only needs a glance at the activity of the central Department of Agriculture to realise the magnitude of the work in hand, and the tremendous power it is for good throughout the United States. Each year's results have to be tabulated under eighteen heads, and a summary covers the labours of the Weather Bureau, of nearly a dozen Divisions dealing with Chemistry, Entomology, Botany, Pomology, Forestry, Soils, etc., of an Office of Experi ment Stations, and of a Bureau of Animal Industry. The last mentioned branch should appeal especially to Australia, judging from the following precz's of its work which appears in the Year Book of the Department for 1899 Meat inspection was con ducted last year at 138 abattoirs in 41 cities. The ante mortem inspections were while the number in 1892 was The third year of experimentation with hog cholera shows that from 75 to 80 per cent. Of hogs injected with serum are saved Encouraging result-s have come from the introduction of dairy products into foreign markets. The Depart ment sends shipments abroad for the purpose of ascertaining the facts regarding such products; these facts are published, and commerce naturally follows. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.