602 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol. 43 



in enlarging the field of effort, and his broadmindedness in refer- 

 ence to new proposals for Avork or action. 



The influence of such an administrative officer is not measured by 

 length of service nor alone bj^ what he himself does, but by what he 

 enables and stimulates others to do. He was a great directing and 

 controlling influence. He was a striking example of the practical 

 man administering scientific inquiry and develoj^ing it in many 

 lines. He was not confused or overawed by it. On the contrary, 

 he had a clear understanding of its requirements as well as its re- 

 sults, and he was not troul)led if it led into strictly technical channels 

 for the time being, provided the problem was not lost sight of. 

 This he saw to with a native shrewdness which helped to keep the 

 feet of the most technical workers on the ground. He maintained 

 an intimate contact with the varied lines of activity throughout the 

 Department, and dealt directly with them through personal confer- 

 ence with those in charge. His capacity for detail was remarkable. 



A common measure of growth in such an institution is the increase 

 in funds, in personnel, in facilities for doing things and for placing 

 them before the people. In the j^ear in which Secretary Wilson 

 came to the Department the combined appropriation was approxi- 

 mately three and a quarter million dollars, of which close to a mil- 

 lion was for the State experiment stations, the distribution of seeds, 

 and for special publications ordered by Congress. By 1905 the 

 appropriation had nearly doubled, and two years later it had quad- 

 rupled. In consequence of new functions and the general expansion 

 of work, the appropriation had reached more than twenty million 

 dollars by 1911, and for 1913, the closing year of his administration, 

 the total was $24,743,044.81. 



The working force of the Deoartment numbered less than twenty- 

 fi\'e hundred persons in 1907, and in his last year it was nearly four- 

 teen thousand. This expansion was due in part to regulatory duties 

 imposed by new laws and the management of the National Forests, 

 but it represented a very large growth in the forces concerned with 

 research and measures for the improvement of agricultural practice. 

 In the period covered the number of employees of the Weatherj 

 Bureau practically doubled, that of the Bureau of Animal Industry! 

 quadrupled, the Bureau of Chemistry increased from twenty to overl 

 five hundred, and the Forest Service from only fourteen to more! 

 than four thousand, while the personnel represented in what becamej 

 the Bureau of Plant Industry grew from 127 to 2,128, and that of thi 

 Bureau of Entomology from 21 to 339. 



Another measure of groAA th is supplied by the record of the De- 

 partment's publications and the demand for them. The printing! 

 fund increased from $116,888 in 1897 to $470,000 at the end of the] 



