522 



ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Office of the Secretary, dated October 9, 1922, the method of handling 

 this work was changed from the monthly allotment of authorization 

 plan and the restrictions affecting the bureaus in mailing publications 

 to foreign countries removed. Under the present plan, a bureau 

 may send as many publications to a foreign address as is deemed 

 proper. Postage for mailing is furnished by the chief clerk, and the 

 appropriation for that office is reimbursed by the bureau. Below is 

 given a summary of the foreign mail work for the year; 3,472 orders 

 were received. 



Packages requiring postage 



Packages sent through the international exchange 



Total number of packages sent 



Number. 



122,087 

 10, 712 



132,799 



Weight. 



Lbs. 02. 



29,457 2 



6,205 4 



35,622 6 



Postage. 



$2,356.57 

 310.23 



2,666.80 



Closely associated with the work of the distribution of publications 

 is the work of receiving^ and distributing the job work prmted at the 

 Government Printing Office for the department. Some idea of the 

 magnitude of this work may be had from the accompanying summary 

 of the receiving and shipping clerk: 



Deliveries received from the Government Printing Office. 4, 377 



Packages of publications received from the Government Printing Office. . 7, 073 



Copies of publications received from the Government Printing Office. . . 2, 792, 996 



Packages of job work received from the Government Printing Office 25, 738 



Copies of job work received from the Government Printing Office 38, 056, 592 



Bags sent from the Division of Publications 3, 590 



Packages sent from the Division of Publications 46, 440 



MAILING LIST WORK. 



The work of maintaining mailing lists for the department is one 

 of the most important phases of the work of distribution. Of such 

 importance is this work that the Congressional Joint Committee on 

 Printing has deemed it necessary to incorporate in its regulations a 

 paragraph pertaining to it. 



Pursuant to Regulations No. 12, paragraph 10, of that committee, 

 all departments are requested to revise their mailing lists at least 

 once every six months. During the last fiscal year the mailing-list 

 unit of this division instituted steps to revise all mailing lists coming 

 within the provision above mentioned. As a result of this activity, 

 questionnaire post cards were sent to 128,101 addresses, resulting 

 in a net reduction of 71,222. Despite this reduction by revision, 

 however, there is an apparent increase of 16,480 in the lists main- 

 tained in the office of the Superintendent of Documents, which totaled 

 267,760 addresses on June 30, 1922, and 284,240 on June 30, 1923. 

 This increase is due to the addition of 30,000 names to the livestock 

 inquiry list of the division of crop and livestock estimates of the 

 Bureau of Agricultural Economics. In addition to the lists at the 

 Government Printing Office, 588 are maintained in the addressing, 

 duplicating, and mailing section of this division, the aggregate ad- 

 dresses of which total 260,255, which is an increase of 47,942 over 

 the number of stencils filed under similar date last year. The total 

 number of addresses on all mailing lists of which we have a record 

 is 544,495. These addresses go to make up 783 individual mailing 



