EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. 36. April, 1917. No. 5. 



The annual agricultural appropriation act continues to be a docu- 

 ment of wide public interest. It constitutes an epitome of the or- 

 ganization and mechanism of the Federal Department of Agricul- 

 ture and reveals its many and intimate relations with the daily life 

 of the whole American people. In a sense it is an indicator of cur- 

 rent opinion as to the most pressing problems of American agricul- 

 ture and the ways in which an institution of this sort may be expected 

 to aid in solving them. It furnishes a convenient measure of the 

 Department's progress from year to year, as well as a forecast as to 

 its activities and lines of development in the months to come. 



The latest of these acts, covering the fiscal year ending June 30, 

 1918, was signed by President Wilson March 4, in the closing hours 

 of the Sixty-fourth Congress. It was thus enacted only a little over 

 six months subsequent to the belated measure for the current fiscal 

 year; yet it is much more than a mere routine extension of it. Unlike 

 the former act, it contains comparatively little general legislation 

 and inaugurates no single project of outstanding prominence, but it 

 increases a large number of the allotments for the Department's work 

 and affords scope for its development in a number of important ways. 



Many of the enlarged appropriations are to provide for its in- 

 creased administrati^ve and regulatory activities, and for the groAvth 

 of such enterprises as the cooperative demonstration work in the 

 Northern and Western States, the market news service, the develop- 

 ment of dairying and animal husbandry, additional soil surveys, and 

 the improvement of the National Forests. It materially enlarges the 

 funds fo]' the combating of a number of serious pests and diseases 

 of animals and plants, notably tuberculosis, hog cholera, dourine, 

 the pink bollworm of cotton, citrus canker, and white-pine blister 

 rust. It provides additional funds for fiber-plant and cereal studies, 

 biological studies of food and drug products, studies of the relative 

 utility and economy of agricultural products for food, clothing, and 

 other purposes in the home, and for various other projects. 



The act converts the Office of Markets and Rural Organization 

 into the Bureau of Markets, and contains a new item of $50,000 

 authorizing the bureau to investigate the handling, manufacture, 



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