30 
of this country, in the building up of a proper system of agricultural education and 
research, and in bringing up a generation of farmers who will understand and appre- 
ciate what the colleges and the experiment stations and other educational agencies 
are doing in behalf of agriculture. 
And s<>, as far as the general interests of the institutions composing this association 
are concerned, it seems to me there is no subject which can more deserve their 
interest and sympathy; and I think that, if the managers of our colleges and experi- 
ment stations, as well as the officers who are engaged in the work, will look into 
this matter they will be convinced, as those of us have been convinced who have 
had occasion to look into it, that here is a force with which they ought to deal 
actively and out of which, properly organized, may grow great good to these institu- 
tions and to our country. 
Appropriations for Mining Schools axd Experiment Statioxs. 
E. B. Andrews, of Nebraska, submit ted the following resolution, which was referred 
to the executive committee: 
Resolved, That the executive committee of the association be instructed to continue 
the effort to secure favorable action by Congress on the mining-school bill and for 
increasing the annual appropriation for the experiment stations. 
The resolution was subsequently favorably reported to the association by the execu- 
tive- committee and agreed to. 
Report of the Committee on Indexing Agricultural Literature. 
A. C. True read the report of the committee on indexing agricultural literature, as 
follows : 
During the past year considerable progress has been made by the Department of 
Agriculture in the indexing of the literature of agriculture and agricultural science. 
The library of the Department has regularly issued printed index cards for the Depart- 
ment publications. An extra number of sets of the index for the last Yearbook and 
for the later numbers of the Farmers' Bulletins have been printed to meet the demand 
for small libraries which have use for these publications. The library has received 
an increase of appropriation which will enable it to extend its indexing, and arrange- 
ments have been made to prepare a card index of agricultural periodicals which shall 
be uniform with the cards already distributed. Indexes for the ' ' Land wirthschaftliche 
Jahrbiicher" and "Annales de la science agronomique" are ready for publication. 
The periodicals relating to general agricultural which are most frequently consulted, 
complete sets of which are in the Department library, will be indexed first. In addi- 
tion to the distribution of cards to agricultural colleges and experiment stations, pro- 
vision will be made for their sale to institutions and individuals who may wish to 
procure them. 
The Department library has also made arrangements which will make it possible 
for other libraries to obtain from the Library of Congress catalogue cards for publica- 
tions on agriculture. During the past six months of the fiscal year the copy for cur- 
rent accessions to the library has been transmitted to the printing division of the 
Library of Congress for printing upon cards. Extra copies of these cards are available 
at a small cost on application to the Librarian of Congress. These cards may be 
ordered by simply sending the serial number found in the bulletin of "Accessions to 
the Department Library," and catalogue cards containing full descriptions of the 
books can thus be secured by agricultural college and station libraries at less cost than 
they could be prepared by each library. Special attention is called to the availability 
of this particular bibliographical matter relating to agriculture. 
The card catalogue of the Department library now contains about 110,000 cards, 
derived from the following sources: (1) Cards for the current accessions; (2) 
index cards for the publications of the Department; (3) cards for articles published 
in certain scientific periodicals and issued by the publishing branch of the American 
Library* Association; (4) cards for certain books in the Library of Congress which 
are of occasional interest to workers in the Department, and from their accessibility 
in the Library of Congress are not purchased by this library; and (5) cards for cur- 
rent botanical literature prepared by the New York Botanical Garden. 
The library is thus in a position to render more efficient aid than ever before to 
