ABSTRACT
A convenient way to get a view of the range of governmental activity in agriculture is to note the creation of bureaus in the federal Department of Agriculture, and the work they did. The United States Department of Agriculture was created under a Congressional act of May 15, 1862. In 1860, there were a few collegiate chairs in the United States that divided up a didactic consideration of agriculture with other branches of natural science, but Michigan, Maryland, and Pennsylvania had the only real agricultural colleges, and they were all new. The agricultural and horticultural boards of the Pacific coast, whose reports to the legislatures show even more than do their names their connection with the state governments, were concerned mainly with combating outside influences that conflicted with the prosperity of the greater landlords. The lien laws and disfranchisement provisions of the South were to perpetuate the control of the section by the landlord-merchants.
