Seventy-Third Annual Report 1223 



broadcast tlironuliont the state so that the consumer may know 

 what the iii;mnt'acturers are doing. If purchasers of these com- 

 modities would confine their purchases to those concerns whose 

 products are honest products and fully up to the guaranty upon 

 which tliov arc sold it would aid very much toward relieving the 

 state of its supervision over these articles. But a great many of 

 the consumers are careless and indifferent, and it seems to be sub- 

 stantially as easy for a concern whose analysis is habitually below 

 the guaranty to sell its products as those whose products are always 

 up to the guaranteed analysis. 



The state has recently undertaken the inspection of farm seeds. 

 This imposes a new duty upon those charged with the execution of 

 the agricultural law. If certain kinds of agricultural seeds con- 

 tain more than three per cent, by count of foul or foreign seeds, 

 the package, bag or sack containing such seeds must be plainly 

 marked so that the purchaser may know the percentage. The 

 state undertakes to secure samples of all such seedvS placed upon the 

 market and to submit them to analysis for the purpose of ascertain- 

 ing their grade of purity. 



These are a few things the state has undertaken to do for the 

 interest of its agriculture and for the regulation of its agricultural 

 production. That it requires the employment of a considerable 

 number of men and the expenditure of a large amount of money, 

 however economically expended, must be apparent. The needs 

 of the state in carrying out these various activities in which it is 

 engaged cannot be measured by the amount of money appropriated 

 for such purposes this year, last year or the year before. The 

 work is constantly expanding and becoming more complex year by 

 year. The agricultural interests of the state deserve well at the 

 hands of the law-making body of the state. jSTew activities are 

 being developed from time to time requiring the expenditure of 

 money and the employment of skilled men. 



The question of developing a plan of cooperative marketing of 

 farm products, of organizing farm bureaus in the various agricul- 

 tural counties of the state, of regulating the sales of goods through 

 commission men, and various other plans for the betterment of 

 agricultural conditions, are being constantly worked out. It is 

 not therefore, a question as to how little may be appropriated, but 



