814 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



year farm products to the value of $827,000,000 were exported. The 

 enormity of the nonagricultural industries which are directly depend- 

 ent upon the farmer and his extraordinary productive ability is like- 

 wise supported by striking figures. 



In a recent address Secretary Wilson said that when he came to the 

 Department he found it necessary to build it up and strengthen it, 

 before he could render the aid he had in mind to the agricultural col- 

 leges and experiment stations of the countiy. One important meas- 

 ure 1 of the extent to which this upbuilding has taken place is found in 

 the personnel of the Department. The total number of persons on the 

 rolls of the Department in 1897 was 2,443, including 925 who were 

 rated as scientists and scientific assistants. Last July there were 

 5,416 persons on the rolls of the Department, 2.326 of whom were rated 

 as scientists and scientific assistants. These figures show an increase 

 of over 3,000 persons in the total force, and of 1,401 in the scientific 

 staff. 



This increase in personnel and in appropriations has naturally gone 

 hand in hand with the development and extension of the Department's 

 work. Taking up the different branches, the Secretary points to 

 some of the more important developments and achievements as indi- 

 cating the lines along which growth has taken place, and illustrating 

 the methods by which the Department seeks to work for the practical 

 benefit of the farmer. There has been important reorganization, such 

 as bringing together several straggling divisions into a Bureau of 

 Plant Industry; and other lines have been enlarged and strengthened 

 and developed into bureaus. 



The work in forestry, for example, which has grown to a position of 

 such recognized importance, may be said to be a product of the past 

 eight } T ears. At the beginning of 1898 the Division of Forestry einp^ed 

 eleven persons, six of whom filled clerical or other subordinate posi- 

 tions. Practically all of its work was office work. The actual intro- 

 duction of forestry began in 1898, when, with the offer of practical 

 assistance to forest owners in the management of their tracts, "the 

 field of action shifted from the desk to the woods." The growth of 

 interest in forestry, in conservative lumbering, in forest reservations, 

 and in education in this branch is too familiar to call for comment. 

 Public opinion has undergone a great change, and a sound national 

 sentiment has been created. The large and varied interests dependent 

 upon the forest have been awakened to the urgent need of making pro- 

 vision for the future, and States have been led to enact wise laws and 

 enter upon a well-considered forest policy. The Secretary holds that 

 if the Forest Service had not taken the lead in finding out just how 

 practical rules for conservative lumbering might be laid down and car- 

 ried out forestry would not have reached the point at which it now 

 stands in the United States. 



