Evening star., 1937-07-03
Department of Agriculture
Is Runner-up to Empire
State With Completion
of South Building.
Group Forms Self.
Contained City.
By HOuayd p. Bailey.

YHEN the finishing touches
~ were put on the South
" " Building of the Department
of Agriculture in May the
linking of that vast structure to the
Administration Building and the two
wings made the combined building the
largest public edifice in the world,
second only to the Empire State Build
Ing in size for Office buildings.
Concentrated in the ll.68 acres oc-
cupied by the building is self-con-
tained city of nearly 10000 popula-
ton, Somewhere within the 1,498, ,627
square feet of floor space will be found
just about every activity of normal
life with the exception of sleeping. and
perhaps bit OF that is done on the
sly
Almost unbelievably, 4,50O Offices are
provided in the South Building alone,
l,189 more than are to be found in the
heretofore record breaking Depart
ment of Commerce Building Working
in only small portion of these Offices
Is the greatest number of scientific
workers ever gathered for regular en-
ployment in one spot. In their labora-
tories is concentrated more scientific
equipment than ever found in use un-
der one roof
TWenty-siX hundred electric clocks
keep the employees posted on the time
of day.
The janltor service cleans 8 miles
OF corridors every night
Forty-tWo elevators carry the en-
pioyes up and down the seven-story
building.
Three million times year the auto
matte counting devices on the dial
telephone system check up on calls
from one part of the building to an
other not including in this total out
side calls that come in or inside calls
that 90 out.
Ihese few statistics, given at ran
dom, may convey some idea of the
vastness of the structure and the ac-
tlVlty which goes on beneath its roofs.
The organic act creating the De-
partment of Agriculture directs the
department to acquire and diffuse use
ful information on subjects connected
with agriculture, in the general and
most comprehensive sense of the word.
The subject was first broached to
the Continental Congress in 1776.
Twenty years later. in his first annual
message to Congress, George Wash
ington proposed Government aid to
agriculture. Twenty-four years later,
IN 1870, the House appointed a Com
mittee on Agriculture Five years after
that the Senate did likewise.
1t was IA years more before any
action was taken. In 1889 Patent
Commissioner Ellsworth, who was at
tached to the State Department, urged
Congress to appropriate ST 900 to COL
1ect and distribute seeds and gather
information of value to farmers. This
was done.
Aid to agriculture continued in the
State Departments hands until 1862.
when President Lincoln signed an act
creating the department, with Isaac
Newton as first commissioner of agri-
culture. Finally, under Cleveland in
1889, the department became an ex-
ecutlve department, with Commissioner
Colman named the first Secretary.
So much for the history of the de-
partment.
Reference was made to the fact that
the new building houses a self-con-
tained city of 10000. That perhaps
will bear some amplification and in the
simplifying some impression of the
vastness Of the department and the