Page:Men of Mark in America vol 1.djvu/98

50 The Bureau of Forestry has been thoroughly reorganized and put into communication with owners of woodlands, large and small; and has been able directly to advise them how most economically to manage their property, usually with a view to the preservation of the land under forest conditions, a need generally acknowledged by public men but hitherto unmet. The scientific character of the work has been indorsed by the president and by congress by placing in its charge the great Federal forest reserves, comprising nearly one hundred thousand square miles of territory. The Bureau of Chemistry has been organized and put in charge of food investigation and inspection, and has attracted to it the chemical inquiries of the other administrative branches, such as sugar testing for the treasury department and ink testing for the post office department. The Bureau of Soils has been established to take up the examination in detail of the lands of the United States and its possessions, and report upon their character and crop-producing fitnesses. The investigations of tobacco soils and the experimental tobacco growing in Connecticut by this bureau have for several years held public attention. The Bureau of Entomology has been organized and has kept watch over the introduction of harmful insects as well as the introduction of beneficial insects. Its fight against the cotton-boll weevil and its aid to bee-keepers are best known. The Bureau of Biological Survey has been organized and the inspection of wild animal importations, with preservation of game, has been given a prominent place in the work as has the determining the life- and crop-zones of the country, and reporting upon the economic value of birds and other wild animals. The Bureau of Statistics has been organized and its work systematized and brought into closer relations with the people, especially by a series of post office cards announcing simultaneously throughout the United States the condition of the crops. This announcement is made at the same moment that the information reaches the commercial centers.

The service of the Weather Bureau and of the Bureau of Animal Industry, two great organizations which were in existence when Secretary Wilson came into office, has been further developed, especially along scientific lines. An unmistakable test of the efficiency of one of these was made in the quick suppression of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in New England, in 1903-04, at a cost of half the amount granted by congress for the purpose, while