It would take a good-sized library to tell adequately all the things the Department of Agriculture is doing for the people of the United States. A formal program issued each year sets forth in barest outlines the undertakings on which the Department is engaged. Although only a few brief paragraphs are devoted to each project, one of these “Programs of Work” fills about 600 pages of fine print. This Department is devoted to the two-fold task of gathering and disseminating information; primarily for the benefit of farmers, but also, directly or indirectly, for that of every man, woman and child in this country. It is also charged with the duty of administering various laws designed to safeguard the health and welfare of the people. Under this head come the inspection of food and drugs, meat inspection, protection of useful birds and animals, supervision of the national forests, and a host of other useful activities. Let us set down at random some of the astonishingly varied tasks with which the Department has lately been occupied. Last year nearly sixty million animals were slaughtered for food under the inspection of the Bureau of Animal Industry. The Biological Survey treated more than thirteen million acres of land with poisoned grain to destroy rodent pests. The Bureau of Crop Estimates published monthly data obtained from an army of about two hundred thousand volunteer crop reporters. The Bureau of Public Roads administered the Federal-Aid Road Act of July 11, 1916, under which the Government is to cooperate with the states in road-building by means of appropriations which began with $5,000,000 for the year 1916, and will increase annually by $5,000,000 to $25,000,000 for the year 1921. The Bureau of Soils continued its work of mapping and classifying the soils, which work now extends over nearly a million square miles. The Weather Bureau established new observing stations in the West Indies, to keep a lookout for hurricanes, and added the study of volcanic phenomena to its wide range of scientific undertakings. The Federal Horticultural Board conducted an immense campaign to rid the cotton-growing regions of the country of the pink boll-worm. The Department as a whole led a nation-wide effort to provide means of feeding a hungry world. In a single year the area planted with agricultural crops was increased by 22,000,000 acres. In 1918 the planted area amounted to 289,000,000 acres. During the same year the country produced about nineteen and a half billion pounds of meat: an increase of about four billion pounds since 1914.