638 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



niornin*]^. T]w work at present is greatly handicapped, and becomes 

 more so each day. by reason of the fact that there is not sufficient 

 space to properly store the stencil cabinets and machinery, to say 

 nothing of the number of envelopes that it is necessary to have within 

 reach in order to expeditiously run off the various mailing lists. 

 The question of storage space has become a serious problem, as in the 

 case of some lists, among others the Crop Reporter list, it has been 

 necessary to discontinue cutting stencils, as there is no room to store 

 them. 



The following are the lists maintained on the stencil system in this 

 office, with number of names on each list : 



Agrostology 2,550 



BiH'eau of Animal Industry, Dairy Division 271 



Biological Survey 878 



Bureau of Chemistry 4,310 



Bureau of Entomology 554 



Forest Service 7G1, 715 



Library 542 



Office of Experiment Stations 13,927 



Bureau of IMant Industry 29,387 



Division of Publications 254,118 



Office of Public Roads 3,713 



Bureau of Soils 271 



Bureau of Statistics 107,830 



Solicitor's Office 242 



INTRODUCTION OF SIMPLIFIED METHODS. 



The demand for the publications issued by the Department 

 increased greatly during the past year; in fact, so much so that 

 during the fall and winter of 1909-10 the force was taxed to its 

 utmost to handle the applications Avith anything like promptness, 

 and it w^as, owing to this continued and increased demand from all 

 parts of the country, found necessary to make some change in the 

 method of handling the applications from miscellaneous applicants. 

 A new plan was put into effect April G, 1910, and has given satis- 

 factor}' results. There are received daily about 2,000 requests from 

 Senators, Representatives, and Delegates in Congress, and from mis- 

 cellaneous applicants, aggregating about 52,000 per month, or con- 

 siderably over 0)24.000 in the course of a year. To handle the miscel- 

 laneous requests of applicants alone required the addressing of 

 619,694 envelopes or franks and 30,000 postal cards, and the using of 

 60,848 orders for miscellaneous publications and 198,400 orders for 

 Farmers' Bulletins. Even with the simplified method the work of 

 complying with the requests involves an enormous amount of clerical 

 work, which requires extreme care, accuracy, and knowledge of the 

 Department's publications and general work of the Department, 

 which can be gained onl}^ by long experience. 



The correspondence in connection with the distribution of publica- 

 tions furnished a good example of the amount of work of this char- 

 acter involved and the increase of the same. Despite the fact that 

 thousands of blank forms and printed cards are used in reply to 

 correspondents the number of letters that it was necessary to write 

 was 56,901, showing an increase of 10,848 over the number written 

 the year previous. 



Another feature of the work which is exceedingly important is 

 that of keeping account of the number of the various publications 



