The San Francisco call., 1904-03-02
IMPROVED AGRICULTURE.


1~ HE Colusa Sun comments upon the criticism in
San Francisco paper, of proposition that the Ag-
i rcutural Department exert itself to find stock
food equal Indian corn, that will where corn
does not This proposition made the for dis
course the departure OF the Federal Government from
the moorngs of the constitution. We unable to
find breach made in the constitution by the Agricul
Department The Federal Government under all
administrations, has considered it duty Introduce
new plants iii order to diversity agriculture and add to
its profits.
This work was formerly considered function of the
Patent Office before the Agricultural Bureau of the In
terror Department created the germ of the
ent Cabinet Department The old Patent Office intro
duced one plant that proved of Importance the
people A Democratic Patent Commissioner, the late
Charles Mason introduced the sorghum sugar 1t
fOurished far north Minnesota. The Patent Office
issued bulletins its cultivation methods of grinding
the and Of evaporang the juice, to make whole
some syrup that substitute for molasses. Great
skill in these processes developed, and forty
ago. all through the prairie States there evaporat
ing plants which farmers hauled their to be
factrred into syrup
During the Civil War, when sugar high sorghum
was of the greatest economic value Later dscov-
cred that the plant valuable fodder for stock better
than and excellent substitute for nay Now
is standard forage crop the dry lands Of Western
Kansas and Nebraska. Sown thickly. the grows
small, with abundant leaves full of sugar, and makes
fatteng food Yet the sorghum destroyed the Fed
eral constitution when introduced under the admnsra-
ton OF Buchanan and entirely unable that
liberty is endangered by finding substitute for Indian
corn.
This work of plant introduction cannot be done by in
dividuals. 1t involves OF investigation and dis
covery all over the world and knowledge of botany
and physics that is general The Agricultural De-
partnrent was capable OF introducing the blastophaga
into California to fertilze Smyrna figs when the
effort of individuals had failed That work of the de-
partment enabled California last year export go
OF dried figs OF excellence equal to the imported article
Then the department. found varieties of the date
penine in California farther north than elsewhere the
world 1t started its expert, Mr. Swingle, upon an
vestgaton OF the date palm Then for the first time
general public learned from him there are dates and
dates. the varieties being certainly as the
varieties OF peaches On far oasis in the Sahara he
found the deget moor. the highest type of date
Turning his attention California by patient nyesti-
CATION he found that the Colorado Desert was even bet
ter adapted this date than its home oasis Re
visiting the Sahara he procured the plants packed them
on camels hundreds of miles across the desert and
planted them on desert Their rapid growth yer-
hes his conclusions and there presented the pros
pect that this State will become celebrated for date
PRODUCTION as is in the growth of citrus fruits and that
in very few years will dominate the markets in
oranges figs and dates Surely the States cannot do
this work, individuals, and the specific work
for which the old Patent Office partly designed and
which belongs to the Department of Agriculture
If the Federal Government discovered these new and
valuable plants, proved the adaptation of soil and
climate to their profitable cultivation and then itself
monopollzed them as producer, TO the exclusion of
citizens 1t is admitted that would be doing something
constutionaly questionable.
The Secretary of Agriculture has been criticized and
indeed denounced. as unscientihc man But he is a
practical farmer and professor of practical agr
culture in college when appointed to his present posi-
ton His Immediate predecessor Mr. Morton of Ne
brasa was not educated in laboratory but he was
practical farmer and made in the department that or
ganizaton of the sciences conributory to agriculture
which has been largely and usefuy developed and
applied by Mr.. Wilson. We of the opinion that if
civil liberty face greater danger than is incurred by
the operations of that department. the days of our en-
slavement as the fixed stars