AGRICULTURE, Department of, an ex ecutive department of the United States, whose head is a member of the Cabinet with the title secretary of agriculture. It was formed early in 1889 under President Cleveland, the first sec retary being Norman J. Colman of Missouri; he was succeeded in the same year, under Pres ident Harrison, by Jeremiah M. Rusk, of Wis consin; in 1893 President Cleveland in his sec ond term appointed J. Sterling Morton, of Ne braska; in 1897 President McKinley appointed James Wilson, of Iowa, who was succeeded in 1913 by David F. Houston, of Missouri, the present incumbent (1916). Its germ was a dis tribution of seeds to farmers by the Commis sioner of Patents in 1836, enlarged by Con gress in 1839 to include the prosecution of ar ricultural investigations and collection of agri cultural statistics; in 1854 a special appropria tion was made and an entomologist employed; in 1855 a chemist and botanist were added and a propagating garden begun. In 1862 the Agri cultural Bureau was established separate from the Patent Office, and President Lincoln ap pointed Isaac Newton, of Pennsylvania, Com missioner of Agriculture; the last commissioner was Mr. Colman, the first secretary. The De partment's quarters in Washington are in a large park near the Washington Monument.
Its functions are expressed by statute as: To acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, and to procure, propagate and distribute among the people new and valuable seeds and plants); but scientific and administrative duties have been heaped upon it till it has become not only an enormous workshop and museum of every class of scientific research relating to plant and ani mal life and that of agricultural animals, but an establishment of practical services in trade and commerce, quarantine, statistics, tree planting, road-making, irrigation, insecticides and almost everything that can affect the inter ests of those engaged in raising and marketing all articles that grow from the ground or living things that feed on them. Even the Weather Bureau was transferred to it, in 1891, from the War Department.
Its cost is over $20,000,000 a year, of which about $2,200,000 goes to extension work. The detailed statement below will give a full con spectus of its activities.