290 ANNUAL REPOKTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUEE. 



Mailing Lists. 



At present there are 275 mailing lists maintained by the depart- 

 ment. The greater number, 259 lists, aggregating 461,304 addresses, 

 are at the Office of the Superintendent of Documents, Government 

 Printing Office. Sixteen lists, aggregating 206,132 addresses, are kept 

 in this section. 



All lists are merged in the general index kept in this office. This 

 index has proved to be of inestimable value when making changes 

 in the various mailing lists; it avoids duplication and reduces to a 

 minimum the amount of time consumed in handling such work. 



The following statement shows m detail the work done in the mail- 

 ing lists records miit of this section : 



Addresses: 



List of, written for different divisions and from lists furnished by miscel- 

 laneous correspondents 426, 915 



Supervising mailing lists at the Government Printing Ollice, comprising 



approximately 500, 000 



Issuing directions for adding 205, 575 



Dropping and changing 40, 000 



Adding to the Monthly List of Publications • 65, 000 



Revising, on the Crop Report list 5, 000 



Comparing 250,000 



Indexing 300, 000 



Typewriting cards for general index 300, 000 



Separating lists of Farmers' Bulletins 157, 000 



Counting lists of Farmers' Bulletins 157, 000 



Assembled press-notice sheets .• 546,949 



Assembled and collated Notice of Judgment Supplements 11 to 20, in- 

 clusive, Nos. 4001 to 4500 225 



Folding, filling, and mailing parcels of mail matter 546, 947 



Work op Machine Room. 



Incident to the work of distributing the publications is the issuing 

 of many form letters, press notices, printing of return envelopes, cut- 

 ting of paper and franks, cuttmg stencils, folding circulars, schedules, 

 etc. 



The output of the machine room has grown rapidly. 



During the year 1917 there were produced on either multigraph 

 or mimeograph machines, 2,419 jobs (1,462 were on the multigraph 

 and 957 on the mimeograph). The number of pages included in 

 these jobs was 6,016,276, of which 3,686,871 copies were ordered. 

 Included in this work was the assembling of 656,893 pages of matter 

 and the stapling of 147,232. 



While the total number of jobs handled is 56 less than the year 

 previous, the number of copies was 618,833 more than during the 

 previous year, being an increase of more than 20 per cent. This in- 

 crease in output was accomplished despite the fact that the efficiency 

 of the machine room unit was reduced appreciably by the temporary 

 loss of 19 skilled operators. 



The duplicating work is only one phase of- the activities of this 

 section. In malan^ additions, drops, and changes on the various 

 mailing lists maintamed in this office 59,077 stencils were cut; 30,065 

 stencils were removed from the files; envelopes and franks numbering 

 5,420,248 were addressed on addressing machines; franks furnished 

 by Members of Congress numbering 746,362 and 863,723 sheets of 



