USDA photo Photo courtesy National Archives and Records Administration
ABOVE: The first practical preventive measure, injection of antihog-cholera serum and then the virus, was successfully tested in 1907 by the USDA’s Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) Field Station near Ames, Iowa. RIGHT: Father of the Pure Food Law Dr. Harvey W. Wiley and his staff work in a laboratory in the USDA Bureau of Chemistry in 1900.
their self-sufficiency and intimacy with the land, were the truest republicans. President George Washington, upon leaving office in 1796, recommended the creation of a national board of agriculture that would disseminate information on agricultural practices and reward prizes for innovation. Wary of any centralized government body overseeing the work of farmers, however, Americans and
their legislators avoided the creation of any central agricultural agency for nearly a century. It was the U.S. Patent Office, interestingly, that extended the first federal assistance to American farmers. Commissioner Henry Ellsworth, an attorney with an interest in agriculture, took charge of the new office in 1836 and oversaw the approval of designs for new
AMERICAN AGRICULTURE
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