318 DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS. 



INCREASE IN WORK AND ENLARGEMENT OF THE DIVISION. 



Notwithstanding the increase in the appropriations provided for 

 last year, the tremendous and unprecedented increase of business 

 necessitated the asking, for the first time in manj^ j'ears, for a defi- 

 ciency appropriation, both for printing and liinding, and for tlie 

 material and labor in the distribution of documents. Both of these 

 deficiency appropriations were granted, but notwithstanding this 

 generosity on the part of Congress, on June 30, 1902, the closing daj'' 

 of the fiscal j^ear, there remained unfinished printing in the hands of 

 the Public Printer amounting to 112 miscellaneous publications and 

 47 Farmers' Bulletins, a large amount of the expense of which must 

 necessarily be charged to the appropriation for the present fiscal year. 



The great development of the Department in recent years, involving 

 almost its reorganization, and the unprecedented increase in the num- 

 ber and variety of its pul)lieations, siiggest as appropriate at this time 

 a presentation of the status of this Division as compared with a few 

 years ago. Ten years ago (the year 1893) the total funds controlled 

 b}^ the chief of this Division for ijrinting, and including the salary 

 roll, was considerably less than $100,000, while the work of the 

 Division was purelj^ editorial, and had no connection, save indirectly, 

 with the work of the branch printing office, the division of illustra- 

 tions, and the document section. The total number of its employees, 

 editorial and clerical, at that time consisted of 7 persons, and the 

 number of publications issued that year, inchiding reprints, was 210, 

 aggregating a total of 2,689,084 copies. Since that time the number 

 of publications has increased to 757 for last j^ear, aggregating a total, 

 as already cited, of 10,586,580 copies. The division of illustrations 

 and the document section and the supervision of the branch printing 

 office have all been merged in the Division of Publications, with the 

 result that the total number of employees reporting to its chief, who 

 is the Editor of the Department, averages over 150, and the funds 

 expended under the supervision of this ofiicer amount, including the 

 statutory roll, to 6383,000. 



A NOMINAL CHARGE FOR PUBLICATIONS. 



Reasons have already been adduced in the first i^art of this report to 

 show that it is impossible for the Editor to restrict the output of pub- 

 lished matter. The law makes it quite as much the dutj^ of this 

 Department to diffuse as to acquire information of use to agriculture, 

 and the jirincipal means available to the Department for such diffusion 

 is printing. Moreover, it is important to note the fact that as the work 

 of the Department becomes better known and more widely appreciated 

 the demand for its publications increases far more rapidl}' than the 

 means to supply it. Great as the increase of the matter has been in 

 the past two years, that is, with 10,000,000 copies of all publications to 

 distribute, more applications for our publications are refused because 

 the editions are exhausted than was the (!kse years ago when the number 

 of copies did not aggregate much more than a quarter as much. I have 

 frequently called attention to this fact in connection with the demand 

 for our publications and urged that some more businesslike and system- 

 atic method of distribution than that now in vogue be practiced. To 

 suppl}" every applicant with all he asked for would not only be wasteful, 

 but it would involve an amount of printing which we can not imagine 

 Congress being willing to j^ay for. In the absence of an entirely free 

 list to which all our publications may be sent on request, there is no 



