40 AXXUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



and efficient administration of the "work is impaired by difficulty of 

 personal contact betAveen the Secretary and th? officers of the depart- 

 ment, as well as between bureau chiefs and units of their own respec- 

 tive bureaus. One bureau of the department alone is housed in nine 

 separate buildings, some of them widely scattered. It is impossible 

 to overemphasize the need for a centralized housing of the depart- 

 ment activities. 



During the year we have been busy on this problem, and a hous- 

 ing committee, of which the Assistant Secretary is the chairman, in 

 cooperation with the architects of the Treasury Department, has pre- 

 pared with great care a proposed building program, which if carried 

 out will house practically all branches of the department in Washing- 

 ton in buildings to be erected on or adjacent to the department reser- 

 vation on the Mall. The proposed program contemplates: (1) The 

 acquisition of ground south of the department's reservation and con- 

 struction thereon of a plain office-type building of six or eight stories. 

 The estimate of the cost of such a building, including the site and 

 enlargement of the power plant of the department, is $4,350,000. 

 This would do much to meet the most pressing housing need of the 

 department, as it will provide a building of large capacity, and it can 

 be constructed at this relatively low cost for the reason that it would 

 not be located on the Mall, and therefore can be erected as a plain office 

 building without interference with the plans for the beautification 

 and development of the Mall. (2) The next most pressing need is 

 for the completion of the central section connecting the two existing 

 marble structures now occupied by the department on the Mall, 

 known as the east and west wings, at an estimated cost of $2,000,000. 

 The two wings were completed in 1908 and have been used by the de- 

 partment since that date, but no funds have been available for the 

 construction of the central portion of the building. (8) When these 

 two projects have been completed, the construction is proposed on 

 the northern end of the department's reservation on the Mall of a 

 portion of a building of suitable construction facing south with sev- 

 eral wings extending toward the north, the approximate cost of 

 which would be $6,000,000, and (4) the completion of the proposed 

 building on the northern end of the reservation by the construction 

 of a north fagade, at an estimated cost of $3,000,000. While this 

 program will involve an ultimate outlay of $15,350,000, it could be 



