[Rarebooks] FS: G. Washington Promotion of Agriculture

[Kaaterskill Books]

We are pleased to  offer the response to Washington's call for the Promotion of Agriculture in 1796:

United States Congress. House. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE TO WHOM WAS REFERRED SO MUCH OF THE SPEECH OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, TO BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS, AS RELATES TO THE PROMOTION OF AGRICULTURE. 11TH JANUARY 1797, COMMITTED TO A COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE, ON MONDAY NEXT. [Philadelphia]: [Printed by William Ross], 1797. 8 pp. 8vo. Removed. First edition. Evans 33031. NAIP W25356. Batschele: Early American Scientific and Technical Literature 675. A very good copy, neat owner's name on title, last page with some offsetting.

George Washington long pushed for aid to agriculture, and specifically in his last message of 7 December 1796, he argued for an organization to collect and to promote knowledge of agriculture under government control. Representative Zephaniah Swift's committee, whose report forms this document, followed up with this proposal that ended in a plan for the organization of the American Society of Agriculture: "Societies have been established in many parts of the United States, but are on too limited a scale to answer the great national purpose of agricultural improvement throughout the United States; it is, therefore, necessary that a society should be established, under the patronage of the General Government, which should extend its influence through the whole country, and comprehend the extensive object of national improvement. It is believed that very essential advantages would be derived from such an institution. While it excites a general spirit of inquiry, it will awaken the attention and animate the exertions of the State societies, as well as encourage new associations, by extending the means of increasing their knowledge. It will be a common centre to unite all the institutions in the United States, and will strengthen the bond of union; it will be a deposite to receive and preserve all the discoveries and improvements which shall be made by the experiments of individuals or societies in every part of the world; whence the result of the whole, after it has been digested by the society, may be disseminated throughout the United States, and every part of the country become acquainted with the best mode of husbandry. Hence, all improvements of a superior nature introduced into any part of the Union might, in a short time, become common to the whole; while, by the ordinary course of things, ages would be requisite to extend agricultural improvements from one end of the continent to the other. By the instrumentality of such a society, the different parts of the Union might become better acquainted with each other, and the culture of such productions might be introduced as would best suit the different climates, and be best calculated for exchange, whereby the progress of that domestic commerce might be greatly accelerated, which, at no distant period, will, in all probability, be far more valuable than foreign commerce." The committee report concludes with a detailed proposal for the creation of the society. But congress never voted on measure, a fact agrarians attributed to Alexander Hamilton's promotion of manufacturing (see John Taylor's, "Arator", 1813).

Scarce. We could locate none at auction in at least fifty years. OCLC shows copies at six locations NY Hist. Soc., Yale, Chicago Botanic Garden, Amer. Antiquarian Soc., Harvard, and Univ. Michigan Clements Lib. Provenance: signed J. Sitgreaves, possibly John Sitgreaves (1757-1802), a delegate from North Carolina to the Continental Congress and later appointed a judge by Washington. [37516] $500.00

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Charles Kutcher
Kaaterskill Books
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