During the war, a National War Labor Board was set up to adjust troubles between employers and their hands working in munitions factories and other war industries; and many serious difficulties were settled by this official arbitration board. Thousands of workmen and workwomen of every degree of skill were drawn into the war service of the Government, as clerks, as workers in factories, and in many other capacities. Up to the time of the war, the Government was much opposed to allowing its employees to join in trades unions, but when, in 1917, the railroads and later the telegraph and telephone operatives were transferred to Government control, they carried with them their existing unions, and even formed some new ones. Uncle Sam therefore takes a large responsibility for labor conditions both inside and outside of the Government service. _Uncle Sam as a Farmer_ [Illustration: A DIFFICULT POSTAL TRAIL Only about three feet wide, and running along the Hoko River from Clallam Bay to Royal, Washington] Although farming was the main pursuit of the American people when Uncle Sam first appeared on the scene, and although 33 per cent. of the workers in the country are today busy on farms, it was many years before the Government of the United States aided the agriculturalist. It began with printed reports (which, oddly enough, were issued by the Patent Office) on improved breeds of farm animals, with attractive colored lithographs. The immense Morrill Land Grant of 1862 was intended chiefly for agricultural education, and the students and graduates of the resulting colleges have done much to spread a knowledge of scientific farming, such as the adaptation of crops to soil, improvement of seeds and grains, the development of high-grade cattle and other farm animals, and the protection of fruit and other crops from insect pests. In 1889 was established a Department of Agriculture, with a Secretary sitting in the Cabinet; and in the thirty years that have followed the Department has wonderfully expanded its usefulness. For instance, it has discovered the cause of the Texas cattle fever, which turned out to be a tick, and has very nearly put an end to that dangerous and destructive pest; it has found a serum to prevent hog cholera; it has established a system for checking the ravages of tuberculosis in cattle; its Bureau of Plant Industry brings in new seeds and fruits from all over the world--including such valuable varieties as the Durum wheat from Russia, Siberian millet and Egyptian dates. [Illustration: UNCLE SAM’S MAIL IN DIFFICULTIES In Northern Minnesota]