EDITOKTAL. 407 



Additional funds which will be administered b}^ the Department 

 are provided in the measure enacted at the recent session of Congress 

 for the protection of the watersheds of navigable streams, and 

 popularl}^ known as the "Appalachian Forest Tleserve " Act. Under 

 this act the Secretary of Agriculture may expend $200,000, in co- 

 operation with States requesting it, in the protection from fire of 

 the forested watersheds of navigable streams, irrespective of owner- 

 ship. He is further authorized to purchase, following a favorable 

 report by the Geological Survey and the approval of a National 

 Forest Reservation Commission, of which he is ex officio a member, 

 lands located at the headwaters of navigable streams, and to admin- 

 ister these lands as permanent National Forests. An aj)propriation 

 of $2,000,000 is made annually until July 1, 1915, for the examination 

 and acquisition of these lands, together with $25,000 additional annu- 

 ally for the expenses of the commission. A more extended summary 

 of this act appears on another page (p. 498). 



Eliminating the deficiency appropriations and that for the Forest 

 Reservation Commission, these various appropriations, which are 

 intimately connected with the work of the Department, would if 

 added to the regidar appropriations make a grand total of $22,570,016. 

 This is a large sum, but as was pointed out by Chairman Scott in 

 concluding the presentation of the bill, " the money appropriated 

 for the Department of Agriculture is an investment and not an ex- 

 pense. And that it has been a good investment, the statistics showing 

 the expansion of agriculture and the improvement in methods 

 throughout our country bear eloquent witness. During these past 

 ten years, while the Department of Agriculture has been expending 

 $90,000,000, the farmers of the United States have added to the 

 wealth of the world the stupendous and incomprehensible sum of 

 $80,000,000,000. Without anything like a corresponding increase in 

 the area of land under cultivation, the value of the farm products 

 of our country has risen from slightly more than $4,000,000,000 ten 

 years ago to nearly $9,000,000,000 in 1910. 



" The conclusion is inevitable, therefore — and that conclusion could 

 be made incontestable by innumerable other proofs if time per- 

 mitted — that the farmers of America are applying better methods 

 and getting better results from their labors than ever before. And in 

 devising these better methods, in pointing the way for better results, 

 the Department of Agriculture has been the undisputed leader, as it 

 should be, and has thus beyond cavil or question derived from the 

 money it has expended a percentage of profit to all the people which 

 can not be calculated." 



85408°— No. 5—11 2 



