Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-12-02
WORK OF SECRETARY RUSK
Aims and Achievements of the
Agricultural Department.
Showing of Exports and Imports
of Farm Products.

Secretary Rusk has sought to make his
fourth and last annual report as head of the
Department Of Agriculture a valuable doc
ument, and has grouped together many in
teresting facts to show what a great agri
cultural people we are. He says we sent
abroad last year 800, O0O, 600 worth of prod.
ucts more than we had to import from for.
. elgn Nations, and eighty per cent of thess
products were agricultural
he shows an increase of 10 CO., 900 pounds
or pork sent to countries which formerly ex
GUIDED American pork and $40, 600. 90 value
increase IN our exports OF live cattle. All
this comes from the increased precautions
to secure the healthfulness of American
food products. The regulations enforced for
the prevention of Texas fever alone have
saved cattle growers more than three times
the cost of running the whole department.
AS TO the suppression of the pleuro-pneu-
monla, the Secretary grows emphatic and
eloquent. He again declares that pleurO-
pneumonia does not exist in the United
States. The result he says, has been obtained
at a cost less by 500, 900 than was pad out by
Great Britain during seven years as indeu?-
nifty for slaughtered cattle alone. He also
points out that the total loss to the cattle
growers Of Great Britain by this disease in
deaths alone has amounted to not less than
half a billion dollars, and that this is the
only country in the world where the disease,
having once gained q foothod has been
eradicated.
He explains why our wheat did not realize
the big hopes raised by the short crops in
various European countries in 1891 by saving
that those anticipations of enhanced prices
failed to take into account the changed con-
ditlons now surrounding the production and
marketing of the worlds wheat crop. ''Tak-
ing the world throughout" he says ~the fat
crops more than equalled the lean crops of
1891, SO that there was actually more wheat
grown in that year than in 1890. Even the
exports from Russia, where famine existed
Ill so large a section, and where exports were
for q time prohibited, amounted to los, O0O,
900 bushels, nearly much the average
of the past four years, and more than the
average for the past ten years. The con-
dltiOnS which have at last overwhelmed cot
ton growers now confront wheat growers.
Hence the American farmer must reduce the
acreage, and SO bring production down to
the normal demand"
While insisting that Southern cotton
growers must continue to reduce the acre
age Of cotton PLANTED, he has some encour-
agement to off er them in the shape of new
varieties OF cotton seed. He has under
taken experiments with imported seed
to secure the production of a home
grown cotton which will meet all t!o
requirements for which Egyptian and ether
cotUons are now imported He also wants
the United States to raise its own raw silk
instead of sending $25, 600, 600 year abroad
for the raw material, and he thinks we
might also save SCI, 900, 600 a year which we
now spend on imported fibres.
He has some hopes OF getting the Ger
mans to use our Indian corn Many difficult
ties have attended the introduction of
food heretofore generally regarded in
Europe as not suitable for human con-
sumption. A mixed corn and rye bread
was found necessary to secure keeping
qualities IN a country where all bread
is made and sold by the bakeries, and
corn grinding machinery purchased in
America is now in use in several mills in that
country. One result is the maintenance Of
the price of corn in the face Of largely in
creased exports, conditions which have here =
tofore always accompanied a great deprecia-
ton in price. The corn exports for 1890, the
only year in which they have equaled those
of the present year, brought the price down
to fraction under forty-two cents bushel
at the port Of shipment, against a fraction
over ffty-tive cents per bushel this year,
q difference aggregating on the exports of
the past fiscal year not less than 0,0O0, 900.
: Secretary Rusk throws cold water on the
rain makers. The experiments are being
facts in his possession do not justify the
ticipatiOns formed by the believers in this
method of artificial rain making.
AS his last word, the Secretary expresses
his profound appreciation of the cordial
sympathy and broad intelligence with
which the President has uniformly,
throughout his Administration, needed
the needs of agriculture, and he predicts
that the people OF this country will learn
TO appreciate more and more the fact
that the first Administration during which
the Department of Agriculture held the
rank of an Executive Department of the
Government was presided over by the Chief
the Importance of agricultu re, its dignity,
and its value to the country at large.