CHAPTER XI.

THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

IN giving the origin of this department, recourse is had to a little work published in 1872, by James M. Swank. He writes as follows:

To Hon. Henry L. Ellsworth, of Connecticut, son of Hon. Oliver Ellsworth, third Chief Justice of the United States, is the country more indebted than to any other person for the recognition by Congress of the claims of agriculture. His services date from 1836, in which year he was appointed by President Jackson the first Commissioner of Patents. The Patent Office had been just then reorganized. Owing to its subsequent intimate association with the interests of agriculture, the origin of that office requires a brief notice, before reference is made to Mr. Ellsworth's administration of its duties.

The first article of the Constitution provides for promoting the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. This clause is the foundation of our laws regulating copyrights and patents. Up to 1793 the granting of letterspatent was confided, by act of Congress, to the Secretary of War, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney-General, the records of patents being kept in the office of the Secretary of State, and all models and drawings being deposited there. On the 21st of February of that year, the duty of acting upon applications for patents was assigned exclusively to the Secretary of State. The examinations of these applications was performed by a single clerk in the office of the Secretary, who, in 1821, received the title of Superintendent of the Patent Office. 1830 this office was further recognized by law, and made the subject of a special appropriation. On the 4th of July, 1836, it was made a separate Bureau of the Government, and the office. of Commissioner of Patents was created. In December of the same year Blodgett's Hotel, a three-story brick building, used

In

for government offices, which stood where the Post-Office building now stands, and fronted on E street, was burned to the ground. In one or two of the upper rooms was located the Patent Office, and its contents were entirely consumed. Afterwards, until 1840, the business of the bureau was transacted in rooms appropriated to its use in the City Hall. In 1840 the Patent Office was removed to the building erected expressly for its accommodation, and now occupied by it.

Mr. Ellsworth was Commissioner of Patents from 1836 to 1845, and one of the first subjects which engaged his attention, after assuming the duties of the office, was the impulse which had been given, at that day, to improvements in the implements of agriculture, and the "aid which agriculture might derive from the establishment of a regular system for the selection and distribution of grain and seeds of the choicest varieties, for agricultural purposes." During the administration of John Quincy Adams, the consuls of the United States were instructed to forward to the State Department rare plants and seeds, for distribution, and a botanical garden was established in Washington. Little was done in the collection and distribution of seeds thus authorized, but to the association of this enterprise with the Patent Office in the State Department Mr. Ellsworth was doubtless indebted for the hint of a more comprehensive system of seed distribution. In 1836 and 1837, the first two years of his incumbency, the commissioner, without legal authorization, received and distributed many seeds and plants which had been gratuitously transmitted to him. In his first annual report, dated January 1, 1838, he called the attention of Congress to the subject, and strongly recommended that provision be made for the establishment, at the National Capital, of a depository of new and valuable varieties of seeds and plants, for distribution to every part of the United States. He further recommended that this depository be made a part of the Patent Office. No immediate action was taken by Congress upon the recommendations, but this neglect did not discourage the commissioner from continuing his self-imposed task of distributing, under the frank of friendly members of Congress, improved varieties of wheat, corn, etc., the beneficial effects of which distribution were fully shown in testimonials from all parts of the country.

On the 21st of January, 1839, Hon. Isaac Fletcher, of Vermont, chairman of the Committee on Patents of the House of Representatives, addressed a letter to Commissioner Ellsworth, requesting the communication of information relative to the collection and distribution of seeds and plants; also, relative to the practicability of obtaining agricultural statistics. To this letter of inquiry the commissioner responded on the following day, reciting the action already taken by him to further the cause of agriculture, and assigning many reasons why his previous recommendations should be adopted. In this communication the commissioner suggested that "arrangements could be made for the exhibition of different kinds of grain, exotic and indigenous, in the new Patent Office." In the closing hours of the Twenty-fifth Congress (act of 3d March, 1839), the commissioner was gratified by the passage of an appropriation of $1000, to be taken from the Patent-Office fund, for the purpose of collecting and distributing seeds, prosecuting agricultural investigations, and procuring agricultural statistics. Thus originated the agricultural division of the Patent Office.

In his annual report of the following year, dated January 1, 1840, Commissioner Ellsworth stated that the diplomatic corps of the United States had been solicited to aid in procuring valuable seeds, and that the officers of the navy had been requested to convey to the Patent Office such seeds as might be offered. As the sixth census was then about to be taken, agricultural statistics were deferred until its completion. In the next report (January 1, 1841), it was stated that 30,000 packages of seeds had been distributed during the preceding year, and that the agricultural statistics, based upon the returns of the census, were being compiled. "The importance of an annual report of the state of the crops in different sections, as a preventive against monopoly, and a good criterion to calculate the state of exchange," was commended to the consideration of Congress, and from this suggestion were evolved, in time, the annual agricultural reports.

In the report for 1841 were given tabular estimates of the products of agriculture in the United States in that year. These estimates filled two pages, and were based upon the census returns of 1840, supplemented by such additional infor