File:Abraham Lincoln's vocations (1909) (14784931405).jpg

Identifier: abrahamlincolnsvagrlinc (find matches)
Title: Abraham Lincoln's vocations
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Subjects: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 United States. Dept. of Agriculture Agriculture
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Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: Friends of The Lincoln Collection of Indiana, Inc.

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the same as it had beenin the past half-century. Manand horse power were still themain reliance on the averagefarm, although an impressivestart had been made towardmechanization and improvementof farm implements. It tookabout as long to plow a field,plant a crop and cultivate it as ithad taken in Revolutionary wardays. This was particularly trueof the newer areas of settlement. The reaper had been inventedabout 30 years before, but its usewas by no means universal. Thesteel plow had been introduced inthe late 1830s and had helpedspeed the opening of the newlysettled West. The science of soilchemistry was even more recent.Although experiments in plantfeeding in Europe led to the es-tablishment of the modern ferti-lizer in this country in 1850, pro-duction amounted to only 20,000tons in 1860. Today Americanfarmers, use nearly 8,000,000 tonsannually. Aids to Agriculture. Soon after his inauguration,Lincoln began throwing theweight of his influence behindmeasures that would strengthen \Hi
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JUSTIN the position of agriculture andpromote its future growth. Thiswas sound strategy in view ofthe impending Civil war. Withina year three bills of outstandingsignificance had been passed.These were the Act Establishingthe United States Department ofAgriculture, the Homestead act,and the Land Grant College act.Agriculture today owes a debt tothe administration which spon-sored these acts. The progress ithas achieved in the past 75 yearswould never have been possiblewithout them. As early as his first message tocongress in December, 1861, Lin-coln pointed out the necessity fora department of agriculture. Agriculture, confessedly thelargest interest of the nation, hedeclared, has not a department,nor a bureau, but a clerkship onlyassigned to it in this government.While it is fortunate that thisgreat interest is so independentin its nature as not to have de-manded or extorted more fromthe government, I respectfullyask congress to consider whethersomething more cannot be volun-tarily g

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