Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-21

IF there is one department of the govern
ment of greater benefit to the masses of
the people than another 1t is the one over
which | have the honor to preside" said
James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, to
a Star reporter and yet we have to train
practically nearly every expert and scientist
connected with the vast organization. There
are no schools or colleges anywhere which
have either the equipment or the teachers
to give such training, and while that lack
exists the department will have to continue
10 provide for itself 1t has now in its
employ 100 young men with good funds-
mental educations behind them, who are
there chiefly to learn to do the work, and
when they have been trained the demand
for their services in foreign countries and
in the commercial world is SO great that
the department can hope TO keep only a
small proportion of them.
THE farmers the creators of wealth
the conservative class In the country, which
works all day in the sunlight and which
reinfoIces all other classes when they wear
out. need more education and we are try
ing TO give it. We are determining the in
fluence of heat and moisture as applied to
plant life of winds and their course, OF
evaporation and it's effects. In our bureau
tiers 10 a science as quickly as can be DONE
and though we have expended millions the
husbandmen and seamen get benefits which
justify the expense. The parabolic paths
of the hurricane, the tracks of the north
winds are being figured Certaintics as to
the great saving of crops: and ships now
know what weather they viii have for sew
eral days Of their passage. This important
subject, whose usefulness everybody knows
was not until within the last Few years
studied in any of our colleges. Now. l be-
Heve. thirteen have taken it up. Foreign
nations are sending here for meteorolOgists.
The English government recently asked me
for one to take charge of its work in
British India.
1--WE sell annually $25O000,OOO worth Of
animals abroad, besides supplying our own
markets. We must see to il that all these
animals have a clean bill of health, and
last year our department inspected 80, 40S,-
900 ca rcases that were leaving the country.
Then there is the further problem of keep
ing our live animals, of which $4,000 600
worth are sold abroad each year, clean and
healthy.
LAS nation. however, we have never
made a study of animals We have de
velOped a track horse and lard pig, but
little more our bureau of animal industry
Is now studying feeding problems At our ex-
pertinent stations, and doing its best to
keep away every disease. We have i'm
ported animals examined by experts on the
other side and out of abundant caution
hold them in quarantine on this side but
even these precautions have not been
enough To keep the hOOt and mouth disease
from Massachusetts 1t took England, be
cause there they tempOriZcd with IL and
hid IT, more than fifty years to stamp this
plague out, but when they finally adopted
the drastic measures which are using
here they rid themselves Of It. II the
people of Massachusetts now through their
agents, Will find where the disease exists,
we Will stamp it out. pay for the animals
ana raise the quarantine as soon as pos