Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1898-01-12
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY u, 1898.
The Department of Agriculture.

Inc department OF Agriculture.
At the beginning of the new year,
it is not unseemly to look back and
note some of the things which the
department of agriculture has done
since President McKinley's Inaugural
ton.
Secretary Wilson came into office
and found that the department had
been practically standing still during
the past four years, if not indeed
actually retrograding in many re-
respects. Secretary Morton had
been Jealous in attempting to sup
press the free distribution of seeds
provided for by Congress, and had
developed mania for turning back
money into the treasury. Although
he reduced expenses in various ways
by simply stopping work which had
been going on, he continued each
year to make his full estimates to
Congress, so that at the end of the
year he would have large balance
of unused funds to turn into the
treasury. But the farmers of the
country knew nothing OF his works,
other than TO see him attacked in the
grange and agricultural papers,
With the present secretary the
case is markedly different. Long in
advance of the enactment of the
Dingley tariff law fixing the duty on
sugar, the new secretary began in
vestigating the beet-sugar PROPOSE
ton and Immediately commenced
operations looking to the trial by
farmers in every part of the country
of sugar beet seeds, with a view to
having the beets tested in the fall
and determining what sections could
raise beets profitably from the sugar
standpoint. One hundred million
dollars, the secretary said, was an
nually sent abroad for sugar and
there was no reason why the farmers
of the United States should not raise
that sugar themselves.
Events appear to be amply justi-
flying the secretary's predictions.
Nhe tests of beets from all over the
country show that We have soil and
climate which will grow superior
beets to any raised in the old world,
whence we import our sugar, and
enough of such soil to not only pro-
duce our own sugar but to supply
q hl Of No
suit of the tests are that beet sugar
factories representing millions of
dollars of capital are going up in
various sections, and next year will
see practically new and very con-
siderable crop in the raising of sugar
beets.
Another undertaking which the
secretary was quick to commence
was the opening and widening of
foreign markets for our meats and
our dairy products. Various inquir-
les were made by our special agents
in England aud elsewhere as to the
kind of butter desired and the style
Of package and the size, and arrange
ments were made with steamship
and refrigerator companies to carry
samples of the best products of our
diaries, the result being that a
considerable and constantly growing
foreign market has been developed
for our butter and cheese.
Secretary Wilson is great be-
lever in the diversifcation of farm
crops and has worked diligently
along these lines. He has carefully
estimated that, including sugar, this
country pays annually to foreign
ers ia the ueighborhood of $1,000
600 for farm products, most of which
the country is itself capable of pro-
ducing, and his ambition is to see it
produce the bulk of these articles.
He has d hundred irons in the fire
looking to this end, and the busy,
hustling condition of the department
of agriculture presents a distinct
contrast to the dull, sleepy atmos-
phere incident to the last secretarys
administration.