REPORT OF THE SOLICITOR. 349 



beet seed to be exported for use exclusively in the United States. 

 This department consented that the seed might be shipped to it for 

 distribution. As a safeguard against violation of the terms on which 

 the articles were brought into this country it was decided to require 

 the importers to file with the department bonds in a penal sum 

 equal to the value of the seed, conditioned in accordance with the 

 agreement with Germany. The office prepared a draft of the bond 

 and subsequently examined and passed upon the sufficiency of execu- 

 tion of 46 such bonds. 



At the request of the Office of Markets and Rural Organization, 

 representatives from this office attended conferences in the Pacific 

 and Northwestern States with persons interested in the formation 

 of cooperative organizations for marketing farm products. Simi- 

 larly, representatives of this office visited points in New York, Ohio, 

 Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana to obtain information 

 affecting the handling, storing, and marketing of staple agricultural 

 commodities through warehouses. 



Aid was given the Advisory Committee on Finance and Business 

 Methods in drafting regulations governing the methods of receiving, 

 recording, caring for, issuing, disposing of, and accounting for Gov- 

 ernment property, and in amending the administrative and fiscal 

 regulations; to the Office of Markets and Rural Organization in 

 drafting orders and notices establishing and promulgating standards 

 of color for cotton, and in drafting for the Rotterdam Cotton Asso- 

 ciation rules governing spot transactions and future trading in cot- 

 ton; to the Bureau of Animal Industry in drafting regulations gov- 

 erning the interstate movement and importation of live stock and 

 hides of animals under the animal quarantine laws, and for adminis- 

 tration of the virus act; to the Biological Survey in drafting regula- 

 tions for administration of Federal bird reserves; to the Forest 

 Service in drafting regulations and instructions for the adminis- 

 tration of the National Forests; also to the administrative officers 

 of the department generally in revising and preparing proposed 

 amendments to sundry other regulations. 



Many. documents of various kinds, including statements of issues, 

 briefs, and memoranda on legal matters, were prepared on behalf of 

 the officials of this department for submission to the Attorney Gen- 

 eral, the Secretary of the Interior, the Comptroller of the Treasury, 

 and officials of other departments. Among the questions were 

 whether the act of March 4, 1911 (36 Stat., 1236), which permits the 

 admission of tick-infested cattle from Mexico into that part of Texas 

 below the southern cattle quarantine line, is constitutional; whether 

 withdrawals of public lands as proposed additions to National Forests 

 in Wyoming and Colorado may be made in aid of pending legisla- 

 tion; whether the Department of Agriculture has jurisdiction over 

 lands in the National Forests withdrawn for reclamation purposes, 

 but not in actual use by the Reclamation Service in the development 

 of a reclamation project ; whether a foreign corporation may be per- 

 mitted to utilize lands in the National Forests for the development 

 of hydroelectric power; whether a right of way for the construction 

 of a road over patented lands within the boundaries of a National 

 Forest can be purchased out of the Forest Service appropriations for 

 improvement of the National Forests. 



