504 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



ods; in road improvement; in developing the efficiency of the 

 Weather Bureau and improving the weather forecasts and extending 

 their distribution; in the application of chemistry to agricultural 

 production and to the detection and prevention of fraud and adulter- 

 ation in food products and drugs. 



" Increased and wider knowledge of the nutritive value of food and 

 of the better utilization of agricultural products as human food has 

 followed the nutrition investigations of this Department, in cooi^era- 

 tion with the experiment stations and other State institutions. 



"Animal nutrition investigations, begun in cooperation with the 

 Pennsylvania experiment station, are accumulating most accurate and 

 scientific information, developed by use of the respiration calorimeter, 

 an instrument invented by experts of this Department.'' 



The remarkable growth of the Forest Service in recent years and 

 the rapid development of a comprehensive national forest policy is 

 strikingly emphasized in the statement that " for Americans ten years 

 ago forestry had neither a practical basis nor practical interest. On 

 July 1, 1898, there were two professional foresters in the employ of 

 the Govermnent, less than ten in the whole country, no school of 

 forestry on the "Western Hemisphere, no scientific knowledge of the 

 first principles of American practice in existence. The very word 

 forestry was usualW meaningless except as it was misunderstood." 



It is shown, however, that between that date and the present time 

 there has been a complete and rapid change in the attitude of the 

 public toward the forests, and that while in 1897 the number of 

 persons employed by the Department in forestry work was only 14 

 and not an acre of forest land was then under the management or 

 control of the Department, the number of persons now employed in 

 the Forest Service is 3,753, and the area of the National Forests now 

 aggregates almost 168,000,000 acres, paying annually into the Treas- 

 ury of the United States over $1,800,000. This enormous growth of 

 the forestry work of the Department has been accompanied by in- 

 creased activity by State agencies and the development of forestry 

 work by the agricultural colleges and experiment stations. 



As concrete evidence of the rapid growth of the Department, it 

 may be stated that while " in 1897 the number of publications issued 

 by the Department was 424. of which 6,541.200 copies were distrib- 

 uted, in 1908 the 1,522 publications of the Department were dis- 

 tributed to the number of 16,875,516. During the eleven years fol- 

 lowing 1897 this Department has printed 10.449 publications, includ- 

 ing reprints, the distribution of which amounted to 129,129,633 

 copies." 



In the same time the Department library has grown from 56,000 to 

 115,000 books and pamphlets, constituting perhaps the most complete 

 agricultural library in the world. 



