62 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



This bill became a law ou the ir.th of March. 190ti. While its language is 

 somewhat obscure ou the questious raised by you, yet reading the bill as a whole 

 it appears to be reasonably certain that the first annual increase of $5,000 

 therein provided for the agricultural experiment stations for the States and 

 Territories is not available for the present fiscal year 1!)0(). It is found in an 

 independent act, not in a regular annual ai)pr(ii)riation bill. It is provided in 

 section 3 of the act " that the sums hereby appropriated * * * shall be 

 annually paid in equal quarterly payments on the first day of January, April, 

 July, and October of each year * * *." it would be a physical impossibility 

 to comply with this provision for the present fiscal year. 



Section 4 thereof provides : 



That on or before the first day of July in each year after the passage of this 

 act the Secretary of Agriculture shall ascertain and certify to the Secretary of 

 the Treasury as to each State and Territory whether it is complying with the 

 provisions of this act and is entitled to receive* its share of the annual appropria- 

 tion for agricultural experiment stations under this act and the amount which 

 thereupon each is entitled, respectively, to receive. * * * 



It is apjiarent from this language that the first payment under the terms of 

 the act should be made to those States and Territories complying with its terms 

 on July 1 next. This will throw the payments for ■a year all within a given 

 fiscal year, resulting in the payments being made at the beginning of a quarter 

 instead of at its close. 



The appropriating chmse of the act. fcmnd in section 1. reads : 



That there shall be, and hereby is. annually appropriated, out of any money 

 in the Treasury not otherwise ai>propriated. to be paid as hereinafter provided, 

 to each State and Territory, for the more complete endownuMit and maintenance 

 of agricultural ex])eriuu'nt stations now established or wliich may hereafter be 

 established in accordance with the act of Congress approved March second, 

 eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, the sum of five thousand dollars in addition 

 to the sum named in said act for the year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hun- 

 dred and six. and an annual increase of the amount of sut-h approiuMation there- 

 after for five years by an additional siun of two thousand dollars over the pre- 

 ceding year, and the aiunial ainoiuit to be paid thereafter to each State and 

 Territory shall be thirty thousand dollars, * * * 



The language " in addition to the sum named in said act for the year ending 

 June thirtieth, nineteen liundrcd and six * * * - js evidently used as de- 

 scriptive of the ^l.l.OOO carried for each agricultural experiment station in the 

 api)ropriation act for tlie fiscal year lOOt!. and not intended to make tlie appro- 

 priation therein provided applicable to tlie present fiscal year. 



If a connna had separated the words "act" ;nid "for." suiirn. Congress 

 would have evidenced its intent to make the apimiprialiun of .$.">.(KK> carried for 

 the first year to each station ai>i)Iicable to the fiscal year l!M)t;. lint the comma 

 is not there. Punctuation may be supjilied to make an act intelligible and oiiera- 

 tive. but shoulil iint be supi)lie(l by constfuctinii wIkmi ils cffecl wimlcl be to con- 

 fuse and make a bill wiiolly or iiartially inoperative. Sucii would be the case if 

 the conmia were supplied in (be langiiasc suiira. I tberet'ore answer your first 

 question in the negative. 



There is nothing in the act to evidence the intent of Congress to ajipropriate 

 more than th«> ."f."i.(t(i(> to c;icli experiineiit station aiuiually for the jieriod of five 

 years and an aiuuial incri'ase tbcrciif of ."s'J.uoii |)cr ye:ir for five years. The agri- 

 cultural ex]terinient stations in .Maska. Hawaii, and Porto Rico were not estab- 

 lished in accordance with the act of Congre.ss of March 2. 1887. but by independ- 

 ent act ; hence they do not fall within llie class <»f cxi)eriinent stations for which 

 the appropriations in this bill were intended. 



I therefore have to answer yotn* last question in tlic negative also. 



Respectfully, 



II. .). TUACEWELL. CoinptroUer. 



