U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 71 



Department always has men ready to be sent out on short notice. To 

 show the success of the plan, — Mr. Grinstead, up at Salem, had some hogs 

 affected with cholera. A man went to look at them and saw at once that 

 they were too far gone .to be saved. Mr. Grinstead went to one of his 

 neighbors and bought eight shoats, where there was no cholera. He took 

 them to his home, and had four of them inoculated and the other four 

 were not inoculated. He put them all into the pens where the hogs had 

 been dying and in with the sick hogs that were sleeping there in the pens. 

 The four hogs that were inoculated are still living, while the four that 

 were not inoculated all died. Now this is merely one instance of the suc- 

 cess of the plan. The same results are accomplished in many other 

 places. I mention these matters simply to show you what the Department 

 at Washington is doing for the people of the United States. 



I might go ahead and speak of the matter of inspection of meats. 

 This matter was first taken up in 1890, and the first law that was passed 

 upon this subject related simply to cured meats. In 1891 laws were made 

 to apply to all kinds of meats, and in 1906 the Meat Inspection Act was 

 passed. That bill provides for inspection of all meat that goes into 

 interstate or foreign commerce. That law is so worded that in effect the 

 Government inspects all the meat that is consumed by our people, whether 

 interstate or whether confined to state commerce. As a matter of fact 

 the effect is that there is a very rigid inspection of all meats that are used 

 in the entire United States. Congress is approprating annually for this 

 matter of meat inspection $3,000,000. The best meat that is consumed 

 and which is known to be the best bears the Government stamp ,and 

 every piece of this meat that is inspected bears this stamp, which is 

 the Government's guarantee that that piece of meat is pure and whole- 

 some and absolutely free from disease of any kind. All the meat that is 

 used for family use in the cities and towns, whether you get it from 

 Omaha, Kansas City or Saint Joe, you will notice bears the Government 

 stamp of inspection and this signifies that it is all right. 



I think now that I have said enough, or at least as much as I am war- 

 ranted in saying with the limited amount of time that I have, on this sub- 

 ject of the Bureau of Animal Industry, and the other bureau that I want 

 to discuss is the Bureau of Plant Industry. This is another of the many 

 bureaus of the United States Department of Agriculture. The work of 

 the Bureau of Plant Industry has to do with all the features of plant life. 

 It includes the division of soils and all other divisions and bureaus whose 

 work relates to plant life. This Bureaus of Plant Industry was establish- 

 ed as a separate bureau in the year 1900, and the work of this bureau has 

 been of inestimable value to the farmers of this country. 



In the first place, the Department of Agriculture was organized dur- 

 ing the War of the Rebellion, in 1862. It has grown from year to year 

 until now the estimated value to the country of the work of this depart- 

 ment is over $60,000,000. In 1867 the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture brought from Prance some sugar beet seeds, — I think some eight 



