On the 7th day of March, 1893, there were upon its pay rolls 2,430 employés. This number has been reduced to 1,850 persons. In view of a depleted public Treasury and the imperative demand of the people for economy in the administration of their Government, the Secretary has entered upon the task of rationally reducing expenditures by the elimination from the pay rolls of all persons not needed for an efficient conduct of the affairs of the Depart

ment.

During the first quarter of the present year the expenses of the Department aggregated 345,876 dol. 76 c., as against 402,012 dol. 42 c. for the corresponding period of the fiscal year ending the 30th June, 1893. The Secretary makes apparent his intention to continue this rate of reduction by submitting estimates for the next fiscal year less by 994,280 dollars than those for the present year.

Among the heads of divisions in this Department the changes have been exceedingly few. Three vacancies occurring from death and resignations have been filled by the promotion of assistants in the same divisions.

These promotions of experienced and faithful assistants have not only been in the interest of efficient work, but have suggested to those in the Department who look for retention and promotion that merit and devotion to duty are their best reliance.

The amount appropriated for the Bureau of Animal Industry for the current fiscal year is 850,000 dollars; the estimate for the ensuing year is 700,000 dollars.

The Regulations of 1892 concerning Texas fever have been enforced during the past year, and the large stock-yards of the country have been kept free from infection. Occasional local outbreaks have been largely such as could have been effectively guarded against by the owners of the affected cattle.

While contagious pleuro-pneumonia in cattle has been eradicated, animal tuberculosis, a disease widespread and more dangerous to buman life than pleuro-pneumonia, is still prevalent. Investigations have been made during the past year as to the means of its communication and the method of its correct diagnosis. Much progress has been made in this direction by the studies of the Division of Animal Pathology, but work ought to be extended, in co-operation with local authorities, until the danger to human life arising from this cause is reduced to a minimum.

The number of animals arriving from Canada during the year and inspected by Bureau officers was 562,092, and the number from transatlantic countries was 1,297. No contagious diseases were found among the imported animals.

The total number of inspections of cattle for export during the past fiscal year was 611,542. The exports show a falling off of

about 25 per cent. from the preceding year, the decrease occurring entirely in the last half of the year. This suggests that the falling off may have been largely due to an increase in the price of American export cattle.

During the year ending the 30th June, 1893, exports of inspected pork aggregated 20,677,410 lb., as against 38,152,874 lb. for the preceding year. The falling off in this export was not confined, however, to inspected pork, the total quantity exported for 1892 being 665,490,616 lbs., while in 1893 it was only 527,308,695 lbs.

I join the Secretary in recommending that hereafter each applicant for the position of Inspector or Assistant Inspector in the Bureau of Animal Industry be required, as a condition precedent to his appointment, to exhibit to the United States' Civil Service Commission his diploma from an established, regular, and reputable veterinary college, and that this be supplemented by such an examination in veterinary science as the Commission may prescribe.

The exports of agricultural products from the United States for the fiscal year ending the 30th June, 1892, attained the enormous figure of 800,000,000 dollars, in round numbers, being 787 per cent. of our total exports. In the last fiscal year this aggregate was greatly reduced, but, nevertheless, reached 615,000,000, being 75.1 per cent. of all American commodities exported.

A review of our agricultural exports with special reference to their destination will show that in almost every line the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland absorbs by far the largest proportion. Of cattle the total exports aggregated in value for the fiscal year ending the 30th June, 1893, 26,000,000 dollars, of which Great Britain took considerably over 25,000,000 dollars. Of beef products of all kinds our total exports were 28,000,000 dollars, of which Great Britain took 24,000,000 dollars. Of pork products the total exports were 84,000,000 dollars, of which Great Britain took 53,000,000 dollars. In bread-stuffs, cotton, and minor products like proportions sent to the same destination are shown.

The work of the Statistical Division of the Department of Agriculture deals with all that relates to the economies of farming.

The main purpose of its monthly reports is to keep the farmers informed as fully as possible of all matters having any influence upon the world's markets, in which their products find sale. Its publications relate especially to the commercial side of farming.

It is therefore of profound importance and vital concern to the farmers of the United States, who represent nearly one-half of our population, and also of direct interest to the whole country, that the work of this division be efficiently performed and that the informa tion it has gathered be promptly diffused.

It is a matter for congratulation to know that the Secretary will not spare any effort to make this part of his work thoroughly useful.

In the year 1839 the Congress appropriated 1,000 dollars, to be taken from the Patent Office funds, for the purpose of collecting and distributing rare and improved varieties of seeds, and for prosecuting agricultural investigations and procuring agricultural statistics. From this small beginning the Seed Division of the Department of Agriculture has grown to its present unwieldy and unjustifiably extravagant proportions.

During the last fiscal year the cost of seeds purchased was 66,548 dol. 61 c. The remainder of an appropriation of 135,000 dollars was expended in putting them up and distributing them. It surely never could have entered the minds of those who first sanctioned appropriations of public money for the purchase of new and improved varieties of seeds for gratuitous distribution that from this would grow large appropriations for the purchase and distribution by members of Congress of ordinary seeds, bulbs, and cuttings which are common in all the States and territories and everywhere easily obtainable at low prices.

In each State and Territory an agricultural experiment station has been established. These stations, by their very character and name, are the proper agencies to experiment with and test new varieties of seeds; and yet this indiscriminate and wasteful distribution by legislation and legislators continues, answering no purpose unless it be to remind constituents that their Representatives are willing to remember them with gratuities at public cost.

Under the sanction of existing legislation there was sent out from the Agricultural Department during the last fiscal year enough of cabbage seed to plant 19,200 acres of land, a sufficient quantity of beans to plant 4,000 acres, beet seed enough to plant 2,500 acres, sweet corn enough to plant 7,800 acres, sufficient cucumber seed to cover 2,025 acres with vines, and enough musk-melon and watermelon seeds to plant 2,675 acres. The total quantity of flower and vegetable seeds thus distributed was contained in more than 9,000,000 packages, and they were sufficient, if planted, to cover 89,596 acres of land.

In view of these facts this enormous expenditure without legitimate returns of benefit ought to be abolished. Anticipating a consummation so manifestly in the interest of good administration, more than 100,000 dollars has been stricken from the estimate made to cover this object for the year ending the 30th Juue, 1895; and the Secretary recommends that the remaining 35,000 dollars of the estimate be confined strictly to the purchase of new and improved

varieties of seeds, and that these be distributed through experiment stations.

Thus the seed will be tested, and after the test has been completed by the experiment station, the propagation of the useful varieties and the rejection of the valueless may safely be left to the common sense of the people.

The continued intelligent execution of the Civil Service Law and the increasing approval by the people of its operation are most gratifying. The recent extension of its limitations and regulations to the employés at free-delivery post offices, which have been honestly and promptly accomplished by the Commission, with the hearty co-operation of the Postmaster-General, is an immensely important advance in the usefulness of the system.

I am, if possible, more than ever convinced of the incalculable benefits conferred by the Civil Service Law, not only in its effect upon the public service, but also, what is even more important, in its effect in elevating the tone of political life generally.

The course of Civil Service reform in this country instructively and interestingly illustrates how strong a hold a movement gains upon our people which has underlying it a sentiment of justice and right, and which at the same time promises better administration of their Government.

The Law embodying this reform found its way to our Statute book more from fear of the popular sentiment existing in its favour than from any love for the reform itself on the part of legislators; and it has lived and grown and flourished in spite of the covert as well as open hostility of spoilsmen and notwithstanding the querulous impracticability of many self-constituted guardians. Beneath all the vagaries and sublimated theories which are attracted to it, there underlies this reform a sturdy common-sense principle not only suited to this mundane sphere, but whose application our people are more and more recognizing to be absolutely essential to the most successful operation of their Government, if not to its perpetuity.

It seems to me to be entirely inconsistent with the character of this reform, as well as with its best enforcement, to oblige the Commission to rely for clerical assistance upon clerks detailed from other Departments. There ought not to be such a condition in any Department that clerks hired to do work there can be spared to habitually work at another place; and it does not accord with a sensible view of Civil Service reform that persons should be employed on the theory that their labour is necessary in one Department when in point of fact their services are devoted to entirely different work in another Department.

I earnestly urge that the clerks necessary to carry on the work

of the Commission be regularly put upon its roster, and that the system of obliging the Commissioners to rely upon the services of clerks belonging to other Departments be discontinued. This ought not to increase the expense to the Government, while it would certainly be more consistent and add greatly to the efficiency of the Commission.

Economy in public expenditure is a duty that cannot innocently be neglected by those intrusted with the control of money drawn from the people for public uses. It must be confessed that our apparently endless resources, the familiarity of our people with immense accumulations of wealth, the growing sentiment among them that the expenditure of public money should in some manner be to their immediate and personal advantage, the indirect and almost stealthy manner in which a large part of our taxes are exacted, and a degenerated sense of official accountability, have led to growing extravagance in Governmental appropriations.

At this time, when a depleted public Treasury confronts us, when many of our people are engaged in a hard struggle for the necessaries of life, and when enforced economy is pressing upon the the great mass of our countrymen, I desire to urge with all the earnestness at my command that Congressional legislation be so limited by strict economy as to exhibit an appreciation of the condition of the Treasury and a sympathy with the straitened circumstances of our fellow-citizens.

The duty of public economy is also of immense importance in its intimate and necessary relation to the task now in hand of providing revenue to meet Government expenditures, and yet reducing the people's burden of Federal taxation.

After a hard struggle Tariff reform is directly before us. Nothing so important claims our attention and nothing so clearly presents itself as both an opportunity and a duty—an opportunity to deserve the gratitude of our fellow-citizens and a duty imposed upon us by our oft-repeated professions and by the emphatic mandate of the people. After full discussion our countrymen have spoken in favour of this reform, and they have confided the work of its accomplishment to the hands of those who are solemnly pledged to it.

If there is anything in the theory of a representation in public places of the people and their desires, if public officers are really the servants of the people, and if political promises and professions have any binding force, our failure to give the relief so long awaited will be sheer recreancy. Nothing should intervene to distract our attention or disturb our effort until this reform is accomplished by wise and careful legislation.

While we should staunchly adhere to the principle that only the