Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1880-04-28

At a recent meeting of the Elmira On.
W farmers club, General lie Due, the
commissioner of agriculture, was present
and addressed the club at considerable
length on the prospect of the new sugar
industry and matters connected with his
department. He evidently has great faith
in the sugar making of the future, and is
not at all satisfied with the accommodate
tons the department has, rs the following
extract will show:
To fully understand the contempt with
which the agricultural interests are re-
garded, you have but to refer to the chair
men of the agricultural committee who
have in years past occupied that despised
position. Ask them what consideration
has heretofore been given to agricultural
matters in the national congress. In my
opinion, gentlemen, and believe in yours,
this committee should be the largest and
most important committee in the organiza-
ton of the Senate and House; for believe
it is more important to consider how
wealth shall be produced than how we
shall spend it.
The little building which we occupy as
IL department of agriculture is overcrowd-
ed with clerks; and indeed were you TO
enter some of the rooms during certain
periods of the year, you would feel your
self poisoned by the foul air. When you
look at the treasury department, at the
new state, war and navy departments,
those magnificent buildings,and then make
comparison with the building which
represents the interest in which one half
of the people are engaged, | know you
will appreciate the vast difference between
them, and be led to ask: Why is it that
the agricultural department does not have
some proper building in which the work
to be done may be performed in salts
factory manner? The chemical laboratory
of the United States is embraced in room
twenty feet square-a room not nearly as
large as this. That room, and cellar
underneath it, and of the same size, con-
stitute the laboratory of the United States.
Only last year l begged the committee to
give us laboratory worthy of the nation
and the work we were doing. If they
would give US such, we could hope to deal
properly with questions, constantly aris-
ing, of the greatest importance TO the
productive industries of the land.
To go back to what the saving by the
raising Of our own sugar means, and as
Stunning that we make our own sugar, for
we will nearly or quite do it the fifth crop
from to-day, thus saving 800, 100000, we
could build with the sayings Of one year
department building eight times as expen-
sve as the capitol of the United States,
which cost $12,000,000. Perhaps it may
occur to you to inquire the use Of SO ex-
tensive a laboratory. In Germany, where
agricultural chemistry received its great
impetus through Prof. Leibig, they have
three laboratories in different parts of that
country, costing more than $3.50, 900 each.
Those prudent, close Germans find it
profitable for their country. and we would
lind it to be. if once established properly,
the most valuable of all governmental
divisions, and altogether Indispensable.
As an illustration of the valuable work
doing, and to be done, we will take the
matter of grasses. This is something you
are all familiar with. How important is
it that you know whether an acre or a
ton of blue grass or some other variety