FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION lO/ 



as miscellaneous receipts. The act of February i, 1905,^° 

 transferring the administration of the forest reserves from 

 the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agri- 

 culture, provided that all money received from these re- 

 serves for a period of five years should be covered into the 

 Treasury as a special fund, available, until expended, as the 

 Secretary of Agriculture might direct, for the administra- 

 tion and improvement of the forest reserves. At first, pro- 

 posed expenditures from this source were not even included 

 in the book of estimates. This apparent oversight was soon 

 rectified, but before the five year period had expired a law*^ 

 was passed requiring that all funds received from forest 

 reserves be covered into the Treasury as miscellaneous re- 

 ceipts. Thereafter only so much of these funds was made 

 available as was necessary to make refunds for payments 

 erroneously received. 



As previously noted,-' a very considerable part of the 

 receipts from the forest reserves are available, by various 

 acts of Congress, for the construction and maintenance of 

 schools and roads in the States and counties in which the 

 forests are located. All of these receipts, however, are cov- 

 ered into the Treasury in the usual manner and the amount 

 is merely used as a basis in determining the sums which the 

 various States and counties are entitled to receive. The 

 seven district fiscal agents, whose duty it is to supervise the 

 financial afifairs of the forest reserves, transmit their col- 

 lections directly to the Treasury and merely send copies of 

 their reports to the Department of Agriculture. 



The privflege of expending the receipts from the sale of 

 products at the insular experiment stations was retained for 

 several years only by a most urgent annual appeal to the 

 House Committee on Agriculture. 



If the experiences of the Department of Agriculture may 

 be taken as typical, and there is reason to believe that they 



20 33 Stat. L. 628. 



21 34 Stat. L. 1256. 

 " Clia|)ter iii. 



