FIFTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 75 



ment of Agriculture as requested, and allow the tubercular 

 eradication to come into that talk as it naturally would. 



As you are all probably aware, the executive branch 

 of your state government is divided into ten parts or ten 

 departments of state. At the head of each one of these 

 departments there is a director. Each one of these direc- 

 tors not only is a director of the department, but he is a 

 member of the governor's cabinet. 



One of these ten departments of state is a department 

 of agriculture, and it is one of the larger of the depart- 

 ments. The department of agriculture of Illinois is di- 

 vided into nine branches or divisions. Over each one of 

 these divisions there is a superintendent. Ea^h division 

 takes care of one specific line of work. 



I will not take the time to take up the work of each 

 one of these divisions, but I will speak briefly on the work 

 of some of the larger of the divisions; and first of all I 

 wish to mention the Division of Foods and Dairies, a divi- 

 sion under which the dairy and food inspection of Illinois 

 is conducted, having approximately forty inspectors in the 

 field and approximately fifteen chemists in our laboratory. 



When I took office last spring there was .soms criti- 

 cism of this division, some people did not think it was going 

 as well as it might. Perhaps it wasn't, or perhaps they 

 were wrong, but this much I wish to say in behalf of that 

 division: last October there were over eight hundred sam- 

 ples of food analyzed in our food laboratories, which was 

 many more samples of food than had ever been analyzed 

 in the state laboratory in any one month in the history of 

 the state. In November the record of September was brok- 

 en, and there was over one thousand samples of food anal- 

 yzed. In that same month there were eighty-three thou- 

 sand pounds of food condemned and destroyed by our in- 

 spectors as being unfit for human consumption. 



The food of this state is inspected in quantity in the 

 City of Chicago. It is then re-inspected in the retail stores 

 of the State. Our inspectors are everywhere. That divi- 

 sion is functioning for the protection of the people of this 

 State^, the protection of food commodities of this State, and 



