The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1916-09-01
BUMPER CROP OF
farm BULLETINS
Department Of Agriculture Issues
5000 Miles Of Documents
in Year.
NOW Big FEATURE OF WORK
Every Effort Is Made to Give People
the Benefit of Information Gath
cred by Uncle Sam's
Scientists.
BY CARL VRooMAN, Assistant Sec
retary of Agriculture.

lgNal y W NblAsAAAhlNs
If the annual report OF the division
of publications of the United States
department of agriculture were to
read something like thls-"Two thou
sand miles of farmers bulletins; s.
600 miles Of documents, all kinds" "
etc.-it would be less precise, perhaps,
but more appealing to the imagina-
ton. 1t is hard for the mind to get
the idea when we say that the de-
partment printed 14,0750O0 copies Of
farmers bulletins last year, but II
means something to say that the farm
ers' bulletins printed last year, If laid
end to end, would make u string
stretching from the Atlantic to the
Rocky mountains. Similarly, "3G,075,-
SCI documents of all kinds" is not at
all exciting, but when we say that If
all the publications issued by the de-
partment OF agriculture last year were
laid end 20 END they would reach from
New York to Moscow, we touch the
springs Of the Imagination and sug-
gest something of the magnitude of
the publishing work Of the depart.
ment.
Such figures graphically set forth
the nature Of the effort which the de.
partment is now making to put before
the people information bearing upon
the betterment of agriculture and of
rural life as whole. They do not,
however, suggest anything approx.
mating the amount of work involved,
of painstaking research and long con.
tinued experiment that went into the
making of the II new farmers bulle-
tins as well as over 700 other publica.
tions, which, with reprints, went to
swell the grand aggregate of depart
ment publications to over 36,0O0OOC
copies.
This work Of getting the facts be-
fore the people, formerly one of the
minor activities of the department.
is rapidly coming to be a big feature
Of its work. There was n time when
the department seemed to think that
its work was done when it run down
and nailed the fact and filed It away
on a shelf or in a pigeon hole, but
those days are past Now every eff
fort is being made to popularize the
information gathered by the depart.
ment scientists.
Within the past three years the for.
nal publications of the department
have been supplemented by the estab
lishment Of an office Of information,
which prints a weekly newspaper for
the information of the press of the
country and prepares and sends out
to the weekly and daily press timely
articles embOdying facts brought out
in the research work Of the depart.
ment, or bearing on its general activ.
tiles. During the past year this Of
fee sent out to the press over 1900 |
articles. It is estimated that more
than 5000 columns of this matter Is
printed every year in the agricultural |.
weeklies alone, while the aggregate of /
such material used by the daily press /,
and by the county weeklles probably
runs into hundreds of thousands of
columns.
Indications are that the near future
will see still further expansion in this
work Of getting the facts to the peO-
pie who need them. The rapid spread
Of county agent work under the pro-
visions Of the Smith-Lever bill has
lone much to stimulate the demand
'Or department publications, and eff
'orts which are now being made still
'urther to increase the usefulness Of
he farmers bulletin series by sim
1lifying and making them more prac-
ical are expected to have a marked
bearing in the same direction.