I06 THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



largely only nominal bodies and seldom meet for the con- 

 sideration of business. When they have acted, they have 

 usually been looked upon as agents of the Congress for 

 ferreting out some suspected maladministration rather than 

 .for systematic consideration of expenditures, or for ren- 

 dering assistance to the various appropriation committees.^' 

 Section five of an act of June 30, 1906, provides as 

 follows : 



Hereafter the Secretary of the Treasury shall require and it shall 

 be the duty of the head of each executive department or other gov- 

 ernment establishment to furnish him, within thirty days after the 

 close of each fiscal year, a statement of all money arising from pro- 

 ceeds of public property of any kind or from any source, other than 

 the postal service, received by said head of department or other 

 government establisliment during the previous fiscal year for or on 

 account of the public service, or in any other manner in the dis- 

 charge of his official duties, other than as salary or compensation, 

 which was not paid into the General Treasury of the United States, 

 together with a detailed account of all payments, if any, made from 

 such funds during each year. All such statements, . . . shall be 

 transmitted by the Secretary of the Treasury to Congress at the 

 beginning of each regular session.^^ 



The principal sources of revenue of the Department of 

 Agriculture, other than the sale of discarded furniture, 

 equipment or other miscellaneous property, are: (i) the 

 sale of cotton standards, the sale of loose cotton, and the 

 costs of cotton futures disputes ; (2) the sale of photo prints, 

 lantern slides, and card indexes ; (3) the sale of agricultural 

 products from the four insular experiment stations of 

 Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico, and Guam; and (4) the sale of 

 forest products from grazing privileges on the national 

 forests. 



Of the revenues thus received the only portion which has 

 been, until very recently, available for expenditure by the 

 Department of Agriculture was that received from the sale 

 of products at the insular experiment stations, seldom 

 amounting to more than three or four thousand dollars an- 

 nually. Even this must now be covered into the Treasury 



^* President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency, " The Need 

 for a National Budget," part 2. 

 "34 Stat. L. 763. 



