24 DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS. 



the Secretary of the Treasurj^ recommended that Congress reorganize 

 and equip tlie present Office of Weights and Measures in such a man- 

 ner as to enable it to meet the demands of the present for the testing 

 and certification of various forms of measuring instruments, and for 

 conducting the researcli work necessarily connected with such opera- 

 tions as the changing conditions of scientific and industrial progress 

 are to be met. 



Considerable time was spent in preparing a statement relative to tlie 

 usefulness of a national standardizing bureau to this Division of tlie 

 Department of Agriculture in response to a request coming through 

 the Secretary of Agriculture from the Secretary of the Treasury, who 

 desired the information for use in connection with his recommendations. 

 I wish to state again that I regard the establishment of such a bureau 

 to be of the most fundamental, continued, and increasing importance 

 for the successful conduct of the work of this Division in the future. 

 As we proceed in the development of standards of quality and purity 

 for foods and other agricultural products, and as analytical processes 

 become more and more numerous and are made more and more accu- 

 rate, the need of a ready and certain means of obtaining apparatus of 

 a prescril^ed standard of accuracy becomes imperative. 



What is true of our needs is true of every industrial and commer- 

 cial operation in connection with which values ha^^e become dej)endent 

 on the results of physical and chemical tests. 



COOPERATION WITH THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH OF THE GOVERNMENT. 



The Division, under instructions from the Secretary, cooperated 

 with the Senate Committee on Manufactures in its investigation of 

 adulterated foods. Many samples of suspected foods were analyzed 

 for the committee, and the chief of the Division assisted the chair- 

 man of the committee in the investigation on various occasions, more 

 than a month of his time being devoted to this work. 



The results of the activity of the Division in this direction were 

 largely iustrumental in securing the introduction of a pure-food bill 

 into the Congress of the United States and its favorable consideration 

 1)3' the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce in the House 

 of Representatives and b}' the committees on Agriculture and For- 

 esti-y and Manufactures in the Senate. In order to secure the highest 

 standards for foods, both for home consumption and for export, it is 

 hoped that this bill may speedily become a law. 



COOPERATION WITH OTHER DIVISIONS. 



The cooperative work with the other branches of the Department 

 of Agriculture has been continued in several directions. 



For the Bureau of Animal Industry a study of dairj^ products, espe- 

 cially of butters of different origin, has been conducted. Particular 

 attention has been paid to the detection of so-called " process" butter 

 and its chemical and physical peculiarities. A study of the composi- 

 tion of foreign cheeses has also been made, both from the point of 

 vicAv of adulteration and of food value. 



In connection with the Division of Soils, collaborative work on soil 

 analysis has been conducted, and working room for one of the chemists 

 of that Division has been provided. 



The Division of Entomology has assisted us in collecting samples of 

 insecticides, and a number of analyses has been made at the request 

 of the chief of that Division. 



Determinations of the water content of Indian corn and other cereals 



