310 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol.35 



has been already discussed (E. S. R., 35, p. 101). A provision is also 

 carried in the National Defense Act of June 3, 1916, for an investiga- 

 tion of means for the production of nitrates and other products for 

 munitions of war and useful in the manufacture of fertilizers, and 

 for the construction and operation by the Government of a plant or 

 plants to manufacture these products. This enterprise carries an 

 appropriation of $20,000,000. 



The substantial aid tendered to agriculture in these various ways 

 indicates anew the increasing popular realization of the responsi- 

 bility of the Federal Government in the development of the Nation's 

 basic industr3^ The program of work outlined for the coming 

 months is unusually broad and comprehensive, and extends the func- 

 tions of the Department in a number of new and important direc- 

 tions. It augments especially its administrative and regulatory 

 powers, but it also provides more liberally than ever before for the 

 development of scientific research and the dissemination of agricul- 

 tural knowledge. There will be general concurrence in the view ex- 

 pressed by President Wilson, after signing the appropriation act, 

 that it will tend to " result in making agriculture more profitable and 

 country life more comfortable and attractive, and therefore insure 

 the retention in rural districts of an efficient and contented rural 

 population." 



