410 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol.36 



cation, demonstration work among the Indians, the maintenance of 

 the Federal Farm Loan Board, and the payment of the country's 

 quota toward the support of the International Institute of Agricul- 

 ture. To these has recently been added another large permanent 

 enterprise through the passage of the Vocational Education Act. 

 This measure, signed by President Wilson February 23, 1917, car- 

 ries among other allotments an appropriation for the fiscal year 1918 

 of $500,000 for cooperation with the States in secondary education 

 in agricultural subjects, and an additional amount for the training of 

 teachers, supervisors, and directors. It is hoped to present a sum- 

 mary of this important law in a subsequent issue. 



Because of the indefinite nature of some of the appropriations, the 

 precise total of the Federal funds for the benefit of agriculture dur- 

 ing the year under review can not be predicted, but it is believed it 

 will approximate $50,000,000. Not all of this vast sum, it should be 

 remembered, is expended exclusively for agriculture, for large sums 

 are devoted to regulatory functions of direct service to the public 

 as a whole. Yet it is an impressive showing, especially when it is 

 recalled that it is a virtual doubling of the figures of even five years 

 ago. The expansion in lines of work is even more significant, and 

 indicates the broadened conception of the term agriculture and the 

 legitimate field of the Federal Government in its development. 



Progress has, of course, been especially noteworthy along extension 

 lines and in attention to the problems of distribution. From this 

 point of view, perhaps the most significant feature of this period is, 

 as was said by Assistant Secretary Vrooman of the Department in a 

 recent article, " that the Federal Government at last is meeting the 

 farmer at least halfway, and has manifested not merely a willingness 

 but a friendly desire to cooperate wdth him in the future in any con- 

 structive work that looks to the building up of our national pros- 

 perity on the basis of a permanently prosperous agriculture." 



