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small amount of moisture. This dry condition gives them their peculiar value for 
forcing vegetation to an early maturity. The tobacco soils of Pennsylvania owe 
their peculiar value to their close texture and to the fact that they maintain an 
abundance of moisture for the crop. This produces a large, heavy type of wrapper 
which competes with the Cuban tobacco The tobacco of the Connecticut Valley, 
on the other hand, is grown on a very light textured, sandy loam, and the soil being 
much drier the crop is much lighter in color and liner in texture. It competes with 
the Sumatra wrapper. 
The work of this new division is to be confined to the study, principally, of the 
texture of the soils adapted to these different interests. It will be one of the pur- 
poses of this division to develop the methods of these investigations and to encour- 
age an extensive study of the soils of the country by State stations and colleges. 
There is a pioneer work to be done here which you can scarcely be expected to do. 
This work is based upon geological formations which may cover a number of States 
and may bo found in widely separated parts of the country. Samples from the 
same formation or the same class of agricultural soils must be collected from all 
over the country and carefully examined and compared. In many cases it will 
doubtless be necessary to get samples of soils from foreign countries for the purpose 
of comparing them with our own. 
Congress has also been asked to provide, in connection with our Chemical Divi- 
sion, for the investigation of the chemical characteristics of the various typical 
soils of the United States, especially in relation to the nature of the nitrifying 
organisms contained therein and the best condition for the growth of the same. 
This work has already been begun and promises to be most interesting. 
I am in danger, however, of using too much of your time, and must hasten to a 
conclusion. You will be interested to know that the Department of Agriculture, 
which is, in part, a great experiment station itself, is pushing its scientific work 
ahead of everything else. We have made a little table showing the actual expendi- 
tures of the Department during the years 1892, 1893, and 1894 for all of its different 
purposes, and have classified these expenditures so as to throw all money used in 
the strictly sci entitle work in one column and all that expended for administrative 
purposes, for publishing and distributing documents, for distributing seeds, for 
purely business or strictly educational work, in another column. I will not burden 
your proceedings with this table, but merely give you the results. 
The Department of Agriculture expended for the fiscal year 1892 $2,271,312.72, and 
46.2 per cent of that sum was expended in scientific research. For the fiscal year 
1893 the expenditures were $2,354,809.56, and out of it 45.6 per cent was expended in 
the application of science to agriculture. For the year ending June 30, 1894, out of 
a total expenditure of $1,990,530.70, the Department applied 51.8 to scientific work 
and investigation. While economy has been practiced in the administration of the 
Department, this economy has not impaired its scientific work. Comparing the 
expenditures for the fiscal years 1893 and 1894, respectively, I note that the total 
expenditures for 1894 are, roughly, $364,000 less than the total for 1893; but the per 
cent of the total amount paid out for scientific work, as distinguished from the 
administrative and general business, is 5.6 per cent more, in proportion to the total 
expenditures during the year 1894, than it was in 1892, and 6.2 per cent more than 
it was in 1893. It was during this same time that we commenced the new work in 
agricultural soils, agrostology, and seed investigations, and still further developed 
that in weeds and many other older scientific lines. 
We feel that this report of our stewardship is due you as scientific men, and it is 
not made in a spirit of boasting. It is simply the natural and proper development 
of a Department that is, above everything else, a great agency of science. The 
Department of Agriculture is an agency for the promotion of economic production 
in our country, and, as such, it must use scientific methods and means. 
While speaking of the progress of this Department, it is gratifying to learn from 
the reports of the colleges and stations, and from the discussions in this meeting. 
