754 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



The work that you are doing in both these associations is very 

 nearly related to the work that is being done by the Department of 

 Agriculture of the State, and especially is that true just now. You 

 are engaged in the improvement of the dairy interests of the State as 

 well as the live stock of our Commonwealth, and our Department 

 has been engaged for the last few weeks especially, in the work of 

 trying to provide better feed upon which the live stock of the Com- 

 monwealth shall subsist. You may know something of what we are 

 doing if I tell you that since I left the State Capital on Monday 

 evening I have attended no less than fifteen hearings, that resulted 

 from prosecutions brought against persons for violation of our feed- 

 ing stuffs law. This work of prosecution was delayed for a while for 

 the reason, for two reasons, I may say; 1st, because we did not feel 

 like entering upon it until we had our chemical laboratory thoroughly 

 established, and well equipped at the State Capital, so that there 

 might be constant intercourse between our chemist and the head 

 of the Department; and second, for the reson that some changes 

 were made in our feeding stuffs law by the late legislature, and it 

 was thought proper to give the people an opportunity to obtain a 

 knowledge of the law. The application of the term "commercial 

 feed stuffs" by the last amendment, was extended, and liabilities 

 of dealers were increased considerably. In order that some people 

 might have some knowledge of the law before prosecutions were 

 begun, we determined to wait until three months had elapsed, and 

 during those three months we were trying to inform the manu- 

 facturers and dealers throughout the State of Pennsylvania what 

 the requirements of the law are. Printed copies of the law and 

 the amendment thereto were sent out to all the dealers whose ad- 

 dresses we could secure, and circulars explaining the law were sent 

 to all the newspapers of the Commonwealth with the request that 

 they be published for the information of the people, and it was de- 

 termined that prosecutions should begin, in fact, Mr. Chairman, we 

 hoped by publicity perhaps we could do away with the necessity of 

 any prosecutions, but we determined, if giving publicity to this mat- 

 ter would not do away with the necessity of prosecutions, they 

 should be begun soon after the first of August, and we would begin 

 to prosecute wherever we found violations of the law by dealers 

 from whom samples were taken on the first of August and after- 

 wards. And we have had quite a number of them to bring, so we 

 have been very busy, and in this work we are working especially 

 along the same lines that you are working. 



Now, I did not expect to make a speech when I came here; but be- 

 fore leaving the floor I want to congratulate the members of the 

 State Live Stock Breeders' Association and members of the Dairy 

 Union upon the excellent prosx>ects that seem to be before you. 

 I do not know that there was ever a time when prospects for the men 

 engaged in rearing live stock, and especially breeding the better 

 class of live stock, than there is at the present time, and you know 

 that the market price for dairy products, has been holding up re- 

 markably well during the past year. There has never been a time 

 since the creation of the Department of Agriculture when there was 

 such a very great demand for licenses to manufacture and sell 

 oleomargarine and renovated butter as there has been within the 

 last few weeks. Now, we do not care about seeing very much of this 



