No. 6 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 40 



RELATION OF THE DAIRY AND FOOD BUREAU TO THE 

 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



The first step iu the history of this Bureau was taken by the 

 dairymeu and I'armers of the State when, at their urging, the Legisla- 

 ture created the olfice of Dairy and Food Commissioner and made 

 it a branch of the service with which the State Board of Agriculture 

 was charged. Prior to that time, there had been several laws upon 

 the statute books regulating the sale of oleomargarine and j)rovid- 

 ing against the adulteration of cider vinegar and the sale as such 

 of various artificial substitutes for this orchard product. These 

 early laws had comparatively little effect in preventing the abuses 

 they were designed to correct, largely because there was no executive 

 officer made specifically responsible for their enforcement. It was 

 the aim of the farmers and dairymen to have the office conducted by 

 a man familiar with the farming and dairying industries and in 

 touch with the methods and conditions of these industries. The first 

 Dairy and Food Commissioner was the Honorable Eastburn Reeder, 

 who was appointed by the President of the State Board of Agriculture 

 in 1893. 



When, in 1895, the Department of Agriculture was created at the 

 desire of the farmers of the State to furnish an agency more compact 

 and capable of closer co-ordination with the other executive officers 

 of the State than was possible in the case of a body so large as the 

 State Board of Agriculture, the office of the Dairy and Food Com- 

 missioner was made subordinate to that of the Secretary of Agricul- 

 ture, and the Dairy and Food Bureau was created as one of the major 

 divisions of the Department of Agriculture. Honorable Levi P. Wells 

 was the first Dairy and Food Commissioner appointed by the Gover- 

 nor under the reorganization. The farming and dairying industries 

 of the State have continued to maintain a deep interest in the work 

 of this Bureau, have co-operated with it in its endeavors to secure a 

 betterment of the food sale conditions, and clearly regard it as chiefly 

 an agency for the safeguarding of important farm industries. Every 

 branch of the State service presents a variety of relations and 

 aspects, and there are frequent difl'erences in opinion as to which of 

 these should be regarded as that upon which the organization rela- 

 tions of the agency should chiefly be based. Such differences of 

 opinion have been expressed with regard to this Bureau; but it is 

 respectfully urged that, in view of the history of this branch of the 

 Srtate service, any change in its departmental relationship would be 

 1—6—1915 



