720 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Measures before Congress. — A delegation of New England experts in the extermina- 

 tion of the gypsy and brown-tail moths were given a hearing before the House Com- 

 mittee on Agriculture February 13, upon the measure providing for control of these 

 insects. As a result of the hearing, it was decided to draft a new bill, confining the 

 work to the gypsy moth and providing for the establishment of a quarantine against 

 its spread. This bill, since introduced, carries an appropriation of $250,000 as before, 

 and places the work in the hands of the Secretary of Agriculture, in cooperation 

 with the authorities of the States concerned and the State experiment stations. 



A conference of representatives of the Southern States was also held in Washing- 

 ton to consider a bill appropriating $500,000 to aid in the extermination of the Texas 

 fever cattle tick. 



The Adams bill, increasing the endowment for the agricultural experiment sta- 

 tions, passed the House February 15, and the Senate March 12. There were no 

 amendments in either case, and practically no objection. In its report upon the bill 

 the House committee expressed its appreciation of the stations in the following terse 

 language: 



"The State experiment stations have done a remarkable work in developing the 

 agricultural interests of the United States. No other single agency has contributed 

 so much to the agricultural education of this country, or has eliminated more errors 

 from farm practices, or has added more to the profits and comfort of farm life." 



Other bills of interest to agriculture have been introduced as follows: Authorizing 

 the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate systems of farm management and types of 

 farming prevailing in different sections of the United States, the means used for 

 maintaining soil fertility, methods employed in the production, utilization, and 

 marketing of crops, and demonstration of improved methods of farming, $120,000; 

 providing an appropriation of $100,000 for experimentation looking to the develop- 

 ment of crops that can be best raised on semiarid lands by dry farming; authorizing 

 the Secretary of Agriculture to make investigations to determine the best methods of 

 utilizing small water supplies in irrigation, $50,000; to establish a Weather Bureau 

 observatory at Sheridan, Wyo., So, 000; appropriating $5,000 to be expended by 

 the Minnesota Station for investigating infectious diseases of domestic animals 

 in Minnesota, their prevention, treatment, etc. ; a concurrent resolution calling 

 for the printing of 15,000 sets of the Farmers' Bulletins of this Department, from 

 No. 1 to the last number issued, nearly two-thirds of which are for distribution to 

 school libraries; to extend the provisions of the National Irrigation Act to the State 

 of Texas; to apply a portion of the proceeds from the sale of public lands to the 

 State normal schools for instruction in agriculture, the initial appropriation being 

 $500,000, with an increase of $100,000 annually for 5 years, making the final annual 

 appropriation $1,000,000; providing for the purchase of a site and the erection of a 

 suitable building in the District of Columbia for the use of the Forest Service as a 

 laboratory for experiments in the seasoning and preservative treatment of construc- 

 tion and other timbers, for testing the strength of timbers, and for determining 

 means of preventing waste in lumbering and in the manufacture of wood products, 

 $100,000; granting to the State of North Dakota 30,000 acres of land to aid in the 

 maintenance of a school of forestry, the school having been established by the State 

 legislature and located at Bottineau; appropriating the receipts from the sale of 

 public lands in the State of Minnesota to the construction of drainage works for the 

 reclamation of swamp and overflowed lands; authorizing the Secretary of Agriculture 

 to make surveys and investigations to determine the benefits to be derived from the 

 drainage of the public swamp lands of the several States and Territories, to prepare 

 estimates of the cost of the same, and appropriating $10,000 for the work the first 

 fiscal year, provision thereafter to be made in the annual appropriation acts for the 

 Department of Agriculture; to enable the Department of Agriculture to conduct 

 demonstration experiments in the eradication of pear blight in Idaho, in cooperation 



