New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-02-26

nue., and therefore 1t needs iseas"ly
Department. If it ever absOrbs the rail-
road and telegraph systems OF the coun-
try it NAV neea another department or two
and surely will need more administrative
officers. When it assumes charge oil the
peope's religion we shall have n Minister OF
Public Worship, and when it follows the eX-
ample OF some highly civilized nations OF
Europe and manages the theatre and opera
Department of Amusements will be needed /;
and SC will a Department Of Public Instruction
when the National Government sets Itself up
as an educator of the people. But Govern
ment needs no executive officer when 1t has
nothing to execute. We have no Secretary Oh
Commerc. because the merchants and not the
Government carry on the trade or the country
The Government digs no ore and builds no
mills or factories, and hence we have no MIN
lister of Mining or of Manufactures. On the
same principle there will be no legitimate occu-
nation for a Boss Farmer in the Cabinet until
the Central Government goes into business as
an active tiller of the soil.
Now it is possible that an Agricultural
Bureau with a man of genuine scientific at
tainments at its head, and working within GER
tain sharply defined limits might prove OF
some advantage. But no one has yet ventured
TO claim that the present Bureau has ever ac-
complshed anything which justiiies its exist
ence. Ii was organized to collect and diffuse
information, and perhaps Dr. Loriug, who is an
impressive orator, may be able to "ditiuse "
some instruction at cattle shows and other
gatherings where el0Quence Is III demand
But so far the Bureau has "diilused nothing
except several hundred thousand dropslcal re-
ports which few people have ever read, Tor the
sufficient reason that they were not worth read
ing. The worst thing that could happen to 1t
would be to amplify its scope, and then make
its head a political officer essentially, as
Cabinet Secretary must be, inasmuch as he Is
selected primarily because he believes III some
line of party policy to which his chlel Is
welded, and because he can aid his chief III
CARVING it ont. Now want no Republican
agriculture or Democratic agriculture, any
more than we want the Signal Service to give
us Republican or Democratic weather. The
last named Bureau and the Coast Survey as
another example, are doing the country inValu-
able service because they are in charge OF men
of superior scientific training and experience,
men who have before them the incentives
OiIeleu DY Il cOnHtilldI IL VIII '''i'''
be claimed that these Offices would do bet
ter work if THEN chiefs were Secretaries III
good and regular standing at Cabinet meetings
and subject to removal with every change Of
Administration.
The bigger the Agricultural Bureau becomes
the worse it will be FOR agriculture, so long as it
is run by a political farmer. 1t can be made
mcasurably useful if placed under permanent
charge of some leycl-headcd man who is an
expert in agricultural science and practice, and
docs not aspire to be anybody's constitutional
adviser. If such a Commissioner were given
an appropriation large enough to enable HIM
to carry Oh for term Of years certain lnvesti-
cations which are too expensive to be under
taken by individual enterprise the farmers OF
the country might profit by his teachings.
Even this work is now efficiently carried on III
several States at their Agricultural Experiment
Stations, and as the number of these stations
increases the functions Of the Central Bureau
would gradually be limited to collecting and
compiling the results of research ut the separate
establishments.