The Colorado statesman., 1916-08-26
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 Sans
Scientists.
BY CARL VRoOMAN, Assistant Sec
retary of Agriculture.

If the annual report of the division
of publications of the United States
department of agriculture were to
read something like this-'"Two thou
sand miles of farmers bulletins; 81
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 14,975000 copies of
farmers bulletins last year, but it
means something to say that the farm
ers' bulletins printed last year, if laid
end to end, would make a string
stretching from the Atlantic to the
Rocky mountains. Similarly, "36,075,-
561 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 to 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-
hof frfN
making of the II new farmers hulle-
tins as well as over 700 other publica-
tions, which, with reprints, went to
swell the grand aggregate of depart
ment publications to over 36,000,000
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 big feature
of its work. There was 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 shelf or in 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
flee sent out to the press over 1,5OO
articles. 1t 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 weeklies 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
done much to stimulate the demand
for department publications, and eff
forts which are now being made still
further to increase the usefulness of
the farmers bulletin series by sim
plifying and making them more prac-
tical are expected to have a marked
bearing in the same direction.