SCIENCE AND THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN AMERICA 



loam, and the soil being much drier the crop is much lighter in color 

 and finer in texture. It competes with the Sumatra wrapper. 



The work of this new division is to be confined to the study, prin- 

 cipally, of the texture of the soils adapted to these different interests. It 

 will be one of the purposes of this division to develop the methods of 

 these investigations and to encourage an extensive study of the soils of 

 the country by State stations and colleges. There is a pioneer work to 

 be done here which you can scarcely be expected to do. This work is 

 based upon geological formations which may cover a number of States 

 and may be found in widely separated parts of the country. Samples 

 from the same formation or the same class of agricultural soils must be 

 collected from all over the country and carefully examined and com- 

 pared. In many cases it will doubtless be necessary to get samples of soils 

 from foreign countries for the purpose of comparing them with our own. 



Congress has also been asked to provide, in connection with our 

 Chemical Division, for the investigation of the chemical characteristics 

 of the various typical soils of the United States, especially in relation to 

 the nature of the nitrifying organisms contained therein and the best 

 condition for the growth of the same. This work has already been begun 

 and promises to be most interesting. 



I am in danger, however, of using too much of your time, and must 

 hasten to a conclusion. You will be interested to know that the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, which is, in part, a great experiment station itself, 

 is pushing its scientific work ahead of everything else. We have made a 

 little table showing the actual expenditures of the Department during 

 the years 1892, 1893, and 1894 for all of its different purposes, and have 

 classified these expenditures so as to throw all money used in the strictly 

 scientific work in one column and all that expended for administrative 

 purposes, for publishing and distributing documents, for distributing 

 seeds, for purely business or strictly educational work, in another col- 

 umn. I will not burden your proceedings with this table, but merely give 

 you the results. 



The Department of Agriculture expended for the fiscal year 1892 

 $2,271,312.72, and 46.2 per cent of that sum was expended in scientific 

 research. For the fiscal year 1893 the expenditures were $2,354,809.56, 

 and out of it 45.6 per cent was expended in the application of science to 

 agriculture. For the year ending June 30, 1894, out of a total expenditure 

 of $1,990,530.70, the Department applied 51.8 to scientific work and in- 

 vestigation. While economy has been practiced in the administration of 

 the Department, this economy has not impaired its scientific work. Com- 

 paring the expenditures for the fiscal years 1893 and 1894, respectively, I 

 note that the total expenditures for 1894 are, roughly, $364,000 less than 

 the total for 1893; but the per cent of the total amount paid out for scien- 

 tific work, as distinguished from the administrative and general business, 

 is 5.6 per cent more, in proportion to the total expenditures during the 

 year 1894, than it was in 1892, and 6.2 per cent more than it was in 1893. 

 It was during this same time that we commenced the new work in agri- 

 cultural soils, agrostology, and seed investigations, and still further de- 

 veloped that in weeds and many other older scientific lines. 



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