EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XIV April, 1903. No. 8. 



The total appropriations made for the U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture by the two sessions of the Fift3"-seventh Congress aggregate 

 11:^,005,133.80. Of this amount $10,687,120 was appropriated for 

 current expenses in the usual way, $1,000,000 was a special appropria- 

 tion for the purpose of eradicating the foot-and-mouth disease in New 

 England, $250,000 was for the purpose of inaugurating authorized 

 work on the new agricultural l)uilding, and $68,013.80 was to meet 

 certain deficiencies. The net increase for the entire Department over 

 the appropriations made b}" the Fifty-sixth Congress was $2,228,753.80. 



The appropriation provided ])v the recent session of Congress for 

 the next tiscal ^^ear amounts to $5,078,1()(), Including an emergenc}" 

 appropriation of half a million, this is an increase of $760,110 over the 

 appropriation for the cui'rent year. Nearly every liui'eau and division 

 receives additional funds, but the wording of the appropriation act 

 mentions very few new undertakings. The increases are for the most 

 part to enable an extension of the work of the Department along its 

 present lines, rather than to take up new special features. The largest 

 increases are for the Bureaus of Animal Industrv, Plant Industrj^, 

 Forestry, and Soils. 



The Bureau of Animal Industry receives an increase of $100,000 for 

 the extension of its meat and other inspection work, making a total of 

 $1,287,380; and an emergency appropriation of $500,000 is placed at 

 the disposal of the Secretary of Agriculture to stamp out the foot-and- 

 mouth disease, which has recently raged in several of the New England 

 States, and other contagious diseases of animals which may appear. 



The Bureau of Plant Industry receives a total increase of $42,200 

 for its work in vegetable pathology and physiology, botanical investi- 

 gations, studies of the pomaceous fruits and their handling, and the 

 experiments with grasses and forage plants. These increases will 

 enable more extensive work in plant breeding, especially to secure 

 crops resistant to alkali, disease-resistant beets, the hardy orange, and 

 the improvement of Indian corn; a continuation on a larger scale of 

 the field trials with nitrogen-fixing organisms in growing leguminous 

 plants, and a larger amount of attention to plant diseases, notai^ly the 

 Texas root rot of cotton and the California vine disease. The increase 



725 



