privy council the responsibilities of the Contagious Diseases
(Animals) Acts, besides the comprehensive duties of the Land
Commission. The board, through its intelligence division,
collects and prepares statistics relating to agriculture and
forestry, and in 1904 appointed a number of honorary agricultural
correspondents throughout the country for the purpose of bringing
to the notice of the board any special circumstances affecting
the practice of agriculture, horticulture and forestry, or
the transport of farm, garden and forrest produce in their
districts. The land division of the board prepares the annual
agricultural and produce returns, and the three divisions, the
animals, intelligence and land, take proceedings under the
following acts:--the Diseases of Animals Acts, the Markets
and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts, the Sale of Food and
Drugs Acts 1875 to 1800, the Merchandise Marks Acts 1887 to
1905, the Fertilizers and Feeding Stuffs Act 1893, the Tithe
Acts 1836 to 1891, the Copyhold Act 1894, the Inclosure Acts
1845 to 1899, the Agricultural Holdings Acts 1883 to 1900,
the Drainage and Improvement of Land Acts, the Universities
and College Estates Acts 1858 to 1898, the Glebe Lands Act
1888, &c. The board also has charge of the inspection of
schools (not being public elementary schools) in which
technical instruction is given in agriculture or forestry,
and institutes such experimental investigations as may be
deemed conducive to the progress of agriculture and forestry.
The Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom is under the
control of the board, as well as the arrangements for the
advertisement and sale of the publications of the Geological
Survey. In 1903 the powers and duties formerly vested in the
commissioners of the Office of Works, relating to the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew, were transferred to the board. The
various departments of the board are (1) chief clerk's branch
and indoor branch of animals division; (2) outdoor branch of
the animals division; (3) veterinary department; (4) fisheries
branch; (5) intelligence department; (6) educational branch;
(7) accounts branch; (8) inclosure and common branch; (9)
copyhold and tithe branch; (10) statistical branch; (11) law
branch; (12) survey, land improvement and land drainage branch.
In 1903, in pursuance of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries
Act 1903, the powers and duties of the Board of Trade under the
Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Acts, the Sea Fisheries Regulation
Acts and other acts relating to the industry of fishing, were
transferred from that department to the Board of Agriculture,
and its name was changed to its present form. The Department
of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland covers
much the same ground. The Annual report of the proceedings
of the Board of Agriculture under the Tithe and other Acts
for 1902 contains a full account of its powers and duties.
In the British colonies the interests of agriculture are
looked after in New South Wales, by an under-secretary
for mines and agriculture; in Victoria, by a member of
the executive council who holds the portfolio of lands
and agriculture; in Queensland, by an under-secretary for
agriculture; in New Zealand, by a minister for lands and
agriculture; in Canada (see, for more detail, the article
Canada, Canadian Agriculture), by a minister for agriculture
(the various provinces have also departments of agriculture).
The government of India has a secretary of revenue and
agriculture. Cape Colony has a secretary for agriculture, a
member of the cabinet; in the Transvaal Colony the director
of agriculture is a departmental secretary; in Natal, the
minister for agriculture is a member of the executive council,
and the establishment consists, in addition, of a secretary, a
director of agriculture, an entomologist, a dairy expert and a
conservator of forests. Cyprus has a director of agriculture.
United States--The Department of Agriculture dates its rank as
an executive department from 1889. It was first established as
a department in 1862, ranking as a bureau, with a commissioner in
charge. In addition to the commissioner there were appointed
a statistician, chemist, entomologist and superintendent
of a propagatory and experimental farm. Its scope was then
somewhat limited, but its work was gradually enlarged by the
appointment of a botanist in 1868, a microscopist in 1871,
the creation of a forestry department in 1877, a bureau of
animal industry in 1884 and the establishment of agricultural
experiment stations throughout the country in 1887. In 1889
the department became an executive department, the principal
official being designated Secretary of Agriculture, with
a seat in the president's cabinet. His salary is $8000 a
year. The secretary is now charged with the supervision
of all business relating to the agricultural and productive
industries. The fisheries have a separate bureau, and
the public lands and mining interests are cared for in the
Department of the Interior; but with these exceptions, all
the productive interests are looked after by the Department of
Agriculture. The department now comprises (1) the weather
bureau, which has charge of the forecasting of weather; the
issue of storm warnings; the display of weather and flood signals
for the benefit of agriculture, commerce and navigation; the
gauging and reporting of rivers; the reporting of temperature
and rainfall conditions for the cotton, rice, sugar and
other interests; the display of frost and cold waves signals;
and the distribution of meteorological information in the
interest of agriculture and commerce; (2) the bureau of animal
industry, which makes investigations as to the existence of
contagious pleuro-pneumonia and other dangerous and communicable
diseases of live stock, superintends the measures for their
extirpation, makes original investigations as to the nature
and prevention of such diseases, and reports on the conditions
and means of improving the animal industries of the country;
(3) the bureau of plant industry, which studies plant life
in all its relations to agriculture. Its work is classified
under the general subjects of pathological investigations,
physiological investigations, taxonomic investigations,
agronomic investigations, horticultural investigations and
seed and plant introduction investigations; (4) the forest
service, which is occupied with experiments, investigations
and reports dealing with the subject of forestry, and with
the dissemination of information upon forestry matters; (5)
the bureau of chemistry, which investigates methods proposed
for the analysis of plants, fertilizers and agricultural
products, and makes such analyses as pertain in general to
the interests of agriculture; (6) the bureau of soils, which
is entrusted with the investigation, survey and mapping of
soils; the investigation of the cause and prevention of the
rise of alkali in the soil and the drainage of soils; and the
investigation of the methods of growing, curing and fermentation
of tobacco in the different tobacco districts; (7) the bureau
of entomology, which obtains and disseminates information
regarding insects injurious to vegetation; (8) the bureau of
biological survey, which studies the geographic distribution
of animals and plants, and maps the natural life zones of the
country; it also investigates the economic relations of birds
and mammals, and recommends measures for the preservation of
beneficial, and the destruction of injurious, species; (9) the
division of accounts and disbursements; (10) the division of
publications; (11) the bureau of statistics, which collects
information as to the condition, prospects and harvests of
the principal crops, and of the number and status of farm
animals. It records, tabulates and co-ordinates statistics
of agricultural production, distribution and consumption, and
issues monthly and annual crop reports for the information
of producers and consumers. The section of foreign markets
makes investigations and disseminates information concerning
the feasibility of extending the demands of foreign markets
for the agricultural products of the United States; the bureau
also makes investigations of land tenures, cost of producing
farm products, country life education, transportation and
other lines of rural economies; (12) the library; (13) the
office of experiment stations which represents the department
in its relations to the experiment stations which are now in
operation in all the states; it collects and disseminates general
information regarding agricultural schools, colleges, stations,
and publishes accounts of agricultural investigations at home
and abroad; it also indicates lines of inquiry for the stations,
aids in the conduct of co-operative experiments, reports upon
their expenditures and work, and in general furnishes them with
such advice and assistance as will best promote the purposes
for which they were established; it conducts investigations
relative to irrigation and drainage; (14) the office of public
roads, which collects information concerning systems of road
management, conducts investigations regarding the best method
of road-making, and prepares publications on this subject.
In the following countries there are state departments of
agriculture:---Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, (industry, agriculture
and public works), Bulgaria (commerce and agriculture), Denmark,
France, Norway (agriculture and public accounts), Italy, Japan
(agriculture and commerce), Prussia (agriculture, woods and
forests), Russia (agriculture and crown domains), Sweden.
AGRIGENTUM (Gr. `Akragas mod. Girgenti (q.v.)),
an ancient city on the south coastof Sicily, 2 1/2m. from the
sea. It was founded (perhaps on the site of an early Sicanian
settlement) by colonists from Gela about 582 B.C., and,
though the lastest city of importance founded by the Greeks in
Sicily, soon acquired a position second to that of Syracuse
alone, owing to its favourable situation for trade with Carthage
and to the fertility of its territory. Pindar (Pyth. xii.
2) calls it kallista brotean polion. The buildings for
which it is famous all belong to the first two centuries of its
existence. Phalaris, who is said to have roasted his enemies
to death in a brazen bull (Pindar, Pyth.. i. 184), ruled as
tyrant from 570 to 554. What form of government was established
after his fall is uncertain; we know only that, after a
long interval, Theron became tyrant (488-473); but his son
Thrasydaeus was expelled after an unsuccessful war with Hiero
in 472 and a democracy established. In the struggle between
Syracuse and Athens (415-413) the city remained absolutely
neutral. Its prosperity continued to increase (its population
is given at over 200,000) until in 405 B.C., despite the
help of the Siceliot cities, it was captured and plundered
by the Carthaginians, a blow from which it never entirely
re-covered. It was colonized by Timoleon in 338 B.C. with
settlers from Veha in Lucania, and in the time of the tyrant
Phintias (289-279) it had regained some of its power. In the
First Punic War, however, it was sacked by the Romans (261) and
the Carthaginians (255), and finally in the Second Punic War
by the Romans (210). But it still retained its importance as
a trading and agricultural centre, even in the Roman period,
exporting not only agricultural products but textile fabrics and
sulphur. In the local museum are tiles used for stamping
cakes of sulphur, which show that the mines, at any rate from
