442 HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 
Mr. Secretary, of this appropriation with reference to the amount of 
money to be expended for boll-weevil investigation. Do you think 
there will be any necessity for more money before that appropiation 
has lapsed ? 
Secretary Witson. When will it lapse? 
Mr. Burueson. In July, 1905; a year from next July. 
Secretary Wixson. I think not. I think that ought to be enough 
money. If there should be any necessity for more, we will tell you a 
year from now; but I think there will be enough there to do anything 
we areable todo. But we are going to do it at once. I will senda 
man down there to work at once along those lines, to do everything 
that can be done to help the people out of that emergency. 
Mr. Roper. Is there anything being done to find uses for plants 
ee grow in the West, and all over the nation, that are now practically 
wild? : 
Secretary Witson. We train the wild plants and obtain uses for 
those that exist in large quantities. We are making a careful study 
of the poisonous plants and the medicinal] plants. 
Mr. Rover. It came out here the other day that there were a few 
cactuses down in Texas and Arizona for which some use is being 
found. What has been done along that line? 
Secretary Wiison. You can make very valuable fiber from most 
of those kinds; nearly all of them have a valuable fiber. 
Mr. Ropry. They said something about cattle feeding. 
Secretary Witson. Well, that has been considered. There have not 
been many cattle fed, I think, along that line. But this is being done: 
We are hunting the desert countries in other lands where they grow 
things they might introduce down there. I think they have found a 
cactus without spines on it, and we are cultivating and introducing a 
sagebush from Australia that the cattle winter on in that country. 
Yes; we are studying those propositions. 
Mr. Bowiz. Mr. Secretary, I want to ask you one question. It has 
been claimed that the experts of the Department of Agriculture are so 
enthusiastic that they are really ahead of the needs of the country. I 
would like to know whether, if all of their suggestions were adopted, we 
would not have such asuperfiuity of crops it would rather react by reason 
of overproduction? I would like to know if it is not true that it is 
necessary for the Department of Agriculture, or the experts of the 
Department, to keep ahead of the country in order to keep the country 
from getting behind the growing demand of the world? 
Secretary Wixson. If we do not keep ahead and think out these 
things for the 1 ee it would never be done. This country has run for 
a century without any of this kind of work being done; and if there 
had been a Department of Agriculture a century ago, with as many 
educated men as we have now, the United States would have been a 
much more powerful and wealthy country to-day. I do not think we 
are quite up with the necessities of the times. 
Mr. Bowrs. You do not think the agricultural production of the 
United States is equal to the demands upon it from the world? : 
Secretary Witson. Now, in regard to the industries of the United 
States, we have been growing as a manufacturing country because the 
farmer furnished cheap food for the workingman, and we have been 
prospering as a nation because within the last fourteen years some 
three billion and nine hundred millions of dollars balance of trade 
