EDITORIAL, <)()5 



of soil exhaustion in the United States. If tlie child gets the right 

 attitude of mind on this great questiop., the man will easily learn and 

 practice the details of the method by which soil fertility is to be main- 

 tained and increased. 



This is no new doctrine to readers of the Eecord. We are here 

 simply affirming that one of the greatest lessons coming out of the 

 AVhite House conference is the imperative necessity for the universal 

 vocational education of our rural people. 



The act making appropriations for the Department of Agriculture 

 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, signed by the President 

 May 23, was noteworthy as marking the continuance of the general 

 policy of the previous year, though enacted under conditions in some 

 respects considerably altered. The opening of a new Congress had 

 brought many changes in membership, and especially in the personnel 

 of the committees charged with the preparation of the bill. In the 

 House of Representatives Hon. Charles F. Scott, of Kansas, succeeded 

 to the chairmanship of the Committee on Agriculture, the majority 

 of the members of wdiich had changed, and in the Senate the death of 

 Hon. Redfield Proctor, of Vermont, prior to the consideration of the 

 measure by that body, was followed by the protracted illness of his 

 succe.:;sor as chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 

 Hon. Henry C. Hansbrough, of North Dakota. Furthermore, in the 

 interim between the meeting of the Fifty-ninth and Sixtieth Con- 

 gresses had occurred the financial depression with an accompanying 

 diminution of revenues. The continuation of substantially all the 

 lines of work under way with increased appropriations for every bu- 

 reau, and the addition of a number of new duties, may therefore be 

 regarded as a renewed expression of the popular interest in the agri- 

 cultural industry and a realization of the necessity for its uninter- 

 rupted development. 



The aggregate of the appropriations carried in the act is $11,G72,- 

 lOG. This does not include an appropriation of $460,000 for the 

 printing and binding of the Department, which appears in the ap- 

 propriation act for sundry civil expenses. There are also perma- 

 nent appropriations of $3,000,000 for the Federal meat inspection and 

 of $528,000 fpr the Adams fund, both of wdiich are administered by 

 the Departip.ent, but not included in the act, making a grand total of 

 $15,000,100 for the coming year, and an apparent increase over the 

 previous year of $2,320,814, or about 15 per cent. A large part of this 

 increase, hoAvever, is only nominal, as for the present year over 

 81,000,000 derived from receipts from forest reserves is available, 

 whereas under the terms of the act for 1907-8 subsequent receipts 

 must be turned into the Treasury. The real increase carried by the 

 act is distributed through the work of the entire Department, but 



