UNIV CHAPTER I. LAWS FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE. § 1. The value of agriculture to the body politic. §2. The Department of Agriculture. §3. Agricultural colleges. $4. Expenses of agricultural colleges to be paid by the States. § 1. The value of agriculture to the body politic has been generally recognized, and, from an early date in the history of national and State legislation, the propriety of fostering it by special statutes admitted. As early as 1817 an act was passed by Congress, offering rewards and granting privileges to a colony of French emigrants, skilled in the culture of vines and olive trees, to induce them to establish that branch of industry in the United States,1 and from that time forward much attention has been given to this class of legislation, the result of which has been that laws for the encouragement of agriculture form a leading characteristic of the statutes of the nation and the several States. § 2. The department of agriculture, in the Government of the United States, was by act of Congress established at the national capital, May 15th, 1862, the duties for the performance of which the department was created, being to acquire, and diffuse among the people of the United States information upon subjects connected with agriculture, and to procure, propagate, and distribute to residents in the several States and Territories new and valuable seeds, plants, and trees. A commissioner of agriculture is made the head of this department, and under him are employed skilled botanists, gardeners, entomologists, and other persons learned in the natural sciences, and by their co 1U. S. Stats. at Large, Vol. 3, p. 374. 2 Ibid, Vol. 12, p. 387. operation the commissioner collates all available information, by statistics, experiments, and culture, and also collects new and valuable seeds, plants, and trees, for gratuitous distribution to such persons as, by culture and experimental farming, will demonstrate their value, and where found to be desirable acquisitions to the agricultural or pomological wealth of our country, will economise seed, cuttings, or grafts, so as to bring the several plants or trees into general culture. The results of these labors, the information obtained, is given to Congress by annual reports; and specimens of the seeds, plants, and trees, obtained or raised, are sent to residents in the various States who are engaged in pursuits of such a character as to be interested in the improvement of agricultural and pomological products. The public appreciation of the importance of the labors intrusted to and the value of results obtained by this department has been such that liberal annual appropriations of money have been made for its support, and this branch of the General Government has become very efficient and of great public utility.1 § 3. Agricultural colleges.-Special provision for the estab lishment and maintenance of colleges, in which agriculture and the mechanic arts are to be taught, was made by act of Congress, approved July 2d, 1862, by the terms of which is allotted to each State a quantity of the public domain, not mineral, equal to thirty thousand acres for each senator and representative in Congress to which the States are respectively entitled by the apportionment under the census of 1860;2 and where it occurs that within any State the nation has not the requisite lands to meet this allotment, the Secretary of the Interior issues, to such State, land scrip to the amount in acres of its share of the public domain under the provisions of the act. No State can locate any of this scrip, but the assignees of the State may do so upon any of the unappropriated lands of the United States which are subject to sale at one dollar and a quarter an acre. Not more than one million acres can be located by such 1 March 30th, 1867, $50,000 was appropriated to this department for the sole purpose of providing for the purchase of seeds for distribution in the Southern States. (U. S. Stats. at Large, Vol. 15, p. 28.) 2 U. S. Stats. at Large, Vol. 12, p. 503, Sec. 2. 8 Ibid, Sec. 2. |