330 



AISTNtTAL REPORTS OP DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



The following summary shows what the office did in the fiscal year 

 1915 in connection with the acquisition of lands under the Weeks 

 forestry law: 



Character of work. 



Acreage. 



Purchases authorized by the National Forest Reservation Commission 



Agreements of purchase prepared 



Titles in process of examination at the beginning of the year 



Examinations of titles completed and reported to the Department of Justice: 



Purchases recommended 



Condemnations recommended 



Examinations of titles completed but not reported to the Department of Justice, 



Titles in process of examination at the end of the year 



Completion of direct purchases after approval of titles by the Attorney General., 

 Completion of purchases of lands acquired through condemnation 



Four meetings of the National Forest Eeservation Commission 

 were attended. 



In addition to the 1,806 contracts prepared for the Forest Service 

 and the 109 purchase agreements under the Weeks law, 201 con- 

 tracts, 288 leases, 14 bonds, 215 renew^als, and 37 notices of termina- 

 tion were drafted for the several bureaus, di^'isions, and offices of 

 the department, making a total of 2,670 documents of these classes. 



Violations of statutes intrusted to the department for enforcement 

 upon which reports were made and prosecutions recommended to 

 the Attorney General, or upon which settlements were eifected with- 

 out litigation, and the amounts of fines and recoveries in cases ter- 

 minated and reported to this office during the year were as follows: 



1 $3,501.32 outstanding. 



In addition, 387 decrees of condemnation and forfeiture were 

 entered under the food and drugs act and 8 under the insecticide 

 act. 



Fewer violations of the 28-hour law and the animal quaran- 

 tine laws were reported than during the fiscal year 1914, due 

 largely to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among live stock, 

 which curtailed shipments and diminished the time inspectors of 

 the department could devote to collecting evidence of violations of 

 these laws. However, there were more trials in the fiscal year 1915, 

 and penalties and fines aggregating $97,880 were collected in 761 

 cases, as against $53,355 the preceding year in 425 cases. 



There was an increase in the number of violations of the food and 

 drugs act reported during the year, due primarily to the collection 

 and examination by the Bureau of Chemistry of a great many sam- 

 ples of drugs in accordance with a plan outlined during the previous 

 year for the purpose of enforcing the Sherley amendment (37 

 Stat, 416). 



