The Division of Veterinary Science and Animal Industry, is entrusted with the development of animal industry throughout the Island, and with the duty of protecting, as far as possible, livestock of all kinds from disease, either foreign or domestic. A laboratory, thoroughly equipped, is maintained as an auxiliary of this Division, enabling the Director to determine the nature of any given disease and to provide means and material for combating it. Under the direction of the same Section are six poultry stations, one in each Province, where experiments are conducted with reference to poultry raising and to the cure of infectious diseases that may afflict. Three breeding stations, too, dependent on this Bureau, have been established in the eastern, central and western districts. The Division of Forests and Mines, owing to the incalculable wealth of Cuba’s mines of iron, copper, manganese, chrome, etc., and to the immense value of her virgin forests of hard woods, scattered throughout the mountainous districts of the interior is of special importance. Forest inspectors are maintained whose duty is to see that timber is not cut without authorization from either government or private lands, or surreptitiously smuggled away from the coast. The enormous acreage, too, of the red and yellow mangrove, remarkably rich in tannin, that encircles nearly all the islands bordering on the interior lagoons, and the making of charcoal carried on in these districts, are supervised by the forest inspectors. Every mineral claim located in the Republic must be reported to the Director of Mines in charge of this Division, where it is registered in books kept for the purpose in the name of the individual petitioning, with the date and hour of record, together with the dimensions or boundaries of said claim carefully indicated. With this registration a payment of $2 for each hectare of land is made and receipted for, which entitles the owner, after said claim has been surveyed by the engineers pertaining to the Division of Mines, to the sole privilege of working the claim, or taking either mineral asphalt or oil from beneath the surface. In the Division of Trade Marks and Patents, one of the most important in the Department, patents and trade-marks are granted for a nominal sum to both citizens and foreigners. Companies that have secured patents in foreign countries, after producing evidence to that effect, may duplicate or extend their patents in this office, and trade-marks that have been established in other countries may be registered in Cuba on proper application. Patents for books and publications are also handled in this Division.