308 EXPEKIMENT STATION EECOED. 



of elk in Wyoming. The appropriation for the Department printing 

 and binding is carried in the appropriation act for sundry civil ex- 

 penses, the allotment for 1913 being $475,000, an increase of $5,000. 

 The Post Office appropriation act contains an appropriation of 

 $500,000 for expenditure by the Secretary of Agriculture in coopera- 

 tion with the Postmaster General in studies of the possibilities of 

 increasing the efficiency of the rural free delivery of mail by improv- 

 ing the condition of the roads, and conditional upon the raising by 

 the States or local communities of double the Federal allotment. 

 There should also be added $25,000, included in an act approved 

 August 20, 1912, providing for the inspection of imported nursery 

 stock, a number of small deficiency appropriations, and an emergency 

 appropriation of $5,000, which went into effect July 30, for work in 

 exterminating the army worm which has been causing considerable 

 devastation to crops in the Southern States. 



Eliminating the deficiency appropriations and the indefinite appro- 

 priations for watershed protection and elk feeding, the grand total 

 for the Department and the State experiment stations! becomes 

 $22,656,496. This is a considerable sum, although it will probably 

 represent less than one-quarter of 1 per cent of the value of the farm 

 crops of the year. When it is recalled that large appropriations 

 will also be available for agricultural education in the land-gi'ant 

 colleges under the Morrill and Nelson Acts, for the rural education 

 work of the Bureau of Education, demonstration work in agriculture 

 among the Indians, certain phases of the census work of direct agri- 

 cultural interest, and the payment of the country's quota toward the 

 support of the International Institute of Agriculture, the wide extent 

 to which the principle of Federal assistance to agriculture is being 

 carried into practice becomes apparent. The further fact that most 

 of the lines of work are provided for solely by annual appropriations 

 and yet are being steadily continued, and in many cases still further 

 augmented, indicates an increasing recognition of the benefits accru- 

 ing to the country as a whole from a consistent and uninterrupted 

 fostering of its agricultural development. 



