The River Falls times. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1894-1933, 1896-11-24
AS TO AGRICULTURE
SECRETARY MORTON MAKES PUBLIC
HIS ANNUAL REPORT.
He Effects Saving of Two Million
Dollars, Which He Says Is the Re-
suit of the Operation of Civil Ser
vice RuIes-Reviev of the Work
of the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES RECON-
mendatiOns Made.

Washington, Nov. "a. Secretary
Norton i'll his fourth annual report,
just made public, shows that with
S2S0,000, which may be saved from the
appropriations for the current fiscal
year, there will have been covered back
into the treasury since March Z, 1893,
over 100000 out of the total appro-
priation of $11,175, 455.45. That this
great economy was effected without
any loss of efficiency he attributes i'll a
large degree to the Improvement in the
personnel of the force under civil SER
vice rules, which he declar IS to be lab
solutely indispensable to the mainten-
ahcp of an economic and efficient adj
ministration of the public service"
To complete "the already almost per
feet system of civil service in this de-
partmentS the secretary recommends
the appointment of a permanent di-
rector in charge of the bureaus Scien-
tific Investigations The chiefs of
scientific bureaus and their assistants,
he declares, are not adequately com
pensated, and strongly recommends
that the salaries of this class of en-
ployeS be increased.
The inspection of animals intended
for food is treated at length, and stress
the work, due to the extension of civil
service rules, which has been very
rapid i'll this service.
The report shows a steadily increas-
ing demand in England for American
horses. During the first nine months
of the present year more of these ami
mails were shipped to that country
than for any previous entire year.
The secretary again takes occasion
to express his opposition to the gratu-
itous distribution of seeds and to eX-
press the hope that the practice will be
discontinued.
Condition of Farmers.
The report concludes with a cOmpre-
henSive review of the condition of the
American farmer. Seventy-two per
cent of the farms in the United States
occupied by their owners are absolute
ly free from mortgages or other IN
cumbrances. The secretary refutes the
idea prevailing that the farms of the
West and South are more heavily
burdened with mortgages than those OF
the East and Northeast. States along
the North Atlantic, he says, are quite
heavily incumbered with farm mort
cages, and New Jersey carries debt
of this kind greater in proportion to it's
farm Vd1udlIOu lIuH any SlIle III tl1C
Union. The frequent claim that the
farmers are almost universally in debt,
respondent and suffering, he declares
to be without foundation, a belittle-
ment of agriculture and an indgnlty to
every intelligent and practical farmer.
The farmers are not mendicants nor
wards of the government to be treated
to annuities, but the representatives of
the oldest most honorable most essen
tial occupation of the human race, upon
which all other vocations depend for
subsistence and prosperity.
Legislation" he says lean neither
pillow nor plant The intelligent prac-
teal and successful farmer needs no
aid from the government. The igno-
rant, impractical and INDECENT farmer
deserves none. 1t it a benefcent ar
rangement of the order of things and
the conditions of human life that legis-
lators are not permitted to repeal,
amend or revise the laws of produc-
ton and distribution"