AN ACT to provide for an increased annual appropriation for agricultural experiment stations and regulating the expenditure thereof. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there shall be, and hereby is, annually appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be paid as hereinafter provided, to each State and Territory, for the more complete endowment and maintenance of agricultural experiment stations now established or which may hereafter be established in accordance with the Act of Congress approved March second, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, the sum of five thousand dollars in addition to the sum named in said Act for the year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and six, and an annual increase of the amount of such appropriation thereafter for five years by an additional sum of two thousand dollars over the preceding year, and the annual amount to be paid thereafter to cach State and Territory shall be thirty thousand dollars, to be applied only to paying the necessary expenses of conducting original researches or experiments bearing directly on the agricultural industry of the United States, having due regard to the varying conditions and needs of the respective States or Territories. SEC. 2. That the sums hereby appropriated to the States and Territories for the further endowment and support of agricultural experiment stations shall be annually paid in equal quarterly payments on the first day of January, April, July, and October of each year by the Secretary of the Treasury, upon the warrant of the Secretary of Agriculture, out of the Treasury of the United States, to the treasurer or other officer duly appointed by the governing boards of said experiment stations to receive the same, and such officers shall be required to report to the Secretary of Agriculture on or before the first day of September of each year a detailed statement of the amount so received and of its disbursement, on schedules prescribed by the Secretary of Agriculture. The grants of money authorized by this Act are made subject to legislative assent of the several States and Territories to the purpose of said grants: Provided, That payment of such installments of the appropriation herein made as shall become due to any State or Territory before the adjournment of the regular session of legislature meeting next after the passage of this Act shall be made upon the assent of the governor thereof, duly certified by the Secretary of the Treasury. SEC. 3. That if any portion of the moneys received by the designated officer of any State or Territory for the further and more complete endowment, support, and maintenance of agricultural experiment stations as provided in this Act shall by any action or contingency be diminished or lost or be misapplied, it shall be replaced by said State or Territory to which it belongs, and until so replaced no subsequent appropriation shall be apportioned or paid to such State or Territory; and no portion of said moneys exceeding five per centum of each annual appropriation shall be applied, directly or indirectly, under any pretense whatever, to the purchase, erection, preservation, or repair of any building or buildings, or to the purchase or rental of land. It shall be the duty of each of said stations annually, on or before the first day of February, to make to the governor of the State or Territory in which it is located a full and detailed report of its operations, including a statement of receipts and expenditures, a copy of which report shall be sent to each of said stations, to the Secretary of Agriculture, and to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. SEC. 4. That on or before the first day of July in each year after the passage of this Act the Secretary of Agriculture shall ascertain and certify to the Secretary of the Treasury as to each State and Territory whether it is complying with the provisions of this Act and is entitled to receive its share of the annual appropriation for agricultural experiment stations under this Act and the amount which thereupon each is entitled, respectively, to receive. If the Secretary of Agriculture shall withhold a certificate from any State or Territory of its appropriation, the facts and reasons therefor shall be reported to the President and the amount involved shall be kept separate in the Treasury until the close of the next Congress in order that the State or Territory may, if it shall so desire, appeal to Congress from the determination of the Secretary of Agriculture. If the next Congress shall not direct such sum to be paid, it shall be covered into the Treasury; and the Secretary of Agriculture is hereby charged with the proper administration of this law. SEC. 5. That the Secretary of Agriculture shall make an annual report to Congress on the receipts and expenditures and work of the agricultural experiment stations in all of the States and Territories, and also whether the appropriation of any State or Territory has been withheld; and if so, the reason therefor. SEC. 6. That Congress may at any time amend, suspend, or repeal any or all of the provisions of this Act. (Stat. 59th Cong., 1st sess., chap. 961.) TRANSFER OF FOREST RESERVES TO THE DEPARTMENT. The work of Gifford Pinchot as Forester of the Department of Agriculture gave confidence that the National forest reserves could be best managed in that Department, and the transfer was made under a law approved February 1, 1905. AN ACT providing for the transfer of forest reserves from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture shall, from and after the passage of this Act, execute or cause to be executed all laws affecting public lands heretofore or hereafter reserved under the provisions of section twenty-four of the Act entitled "An Act to repeal the timber-culture laws, and for other purposes," approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, and Acts supplemental to and amendatory thereof, after such lands have been so reserved, excepting such laws as affect the surveying, prospecting, locating, appropriating, entering, relinquishing, reconveying, certifying, or patenting of any of such lands. SEC. 2. That pulp wood or wood pulp manufactured from timber in the district of Alaska may be exported therefrom. SEC. 3. That forest supervisors and rangers shall be selected, when practicable, from qualified citizens of the States or Territories in which the said reserves, respectively, are situated. SEC. 4. That rights of way for the construction and maintenance of dams, reservoirs, water plants, ditches, flumes, pipes, tunnels, and canals, within and across the forest reserves of the United States, are hereby granted to citizens and corporations of the United States for municipal or mining purposes, and for the purposes of the milling and reduction of ores, during the period of their beneficial use, under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior, and subject to the laws of the State or Territory in which said reserves are respectively situated. SEC. 5. That all money received from the sale of any products or the use of any land or resources of said forest reserves shall be covered into the Treasury of the United States and for a period of five years from the passage of this Act shall constitute a special fund available, until expended, as the Secretary of Agriculture may direct, for the protection, administration, improvement, and extension of Federal forest reserves. (33 Stat. L., 628.) The law under which forest reserves have been established during the past fifteen years is section 24 of the act repealing the timberculture law which was approved on March 3, 1891. The section is as follows: SEC. 24. The President of the United States may, from time to time, set apart and reserve, in any State or Territory having public lands bearing forests, any parts of the public lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations, and the President shall, by public proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof. (26 Stat. L. 1103.) PRESERVATION, INTRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION AND RESTORATION OF BIRDS. Legislation for protection of game was encouraged by a Connecticut decision in 1896, that game is the property of the State. After much discussion, beginning in 1897, a law introduced by Hon. John F. Lacey, of Iowa, was finally passed by Congress and approved by President McKinley on May 25, 1900. AN ACT to enlarge the powers of the Department of Agriculture, prohibit the transportation by interstate commerce of game killed in violation of local laws, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the duties and powers of the Department of Agriculture are hereby enlarged so as to include the preservation, distribution, introduction, and restoration of game birds and other wild birds. The Secretary of Agriculture is hereby authorized to adopt such measures as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this Act and to purchase such game birds and other wild birds as may be required therefor, subject, however, to the laws of the various States and Territories. The object and purpose of this Act is to aid in the restoration of such birds in those parts of the United States adapted thereto where the same have become scarce or extinct, and also to regulate the introduction of American or foreign birds or animals in localities where they have not heretofore existed. The Secretary of Agriculture shall from time to time collect and publish useful information as to the propagation, uses, and preservation of such birds. And the Secretary of Agriculture shall make and publish all needful rules and regulations for carrying out the purposes of this Act, and shall expend for said purposes such sums as Congress may appropriate therefor. SEC. 2. That it shall be unlawful for any person or persons to import into the United States any foreign wild animal or bird except under special permit from the United States Department of Agriculture: Provided, That nothing in this section shall restrict the importation of natural history specimens for museums or scientific collections, or the importation of certain cage birds, such as domesticated canaries, parrots, or such other species as the Secretary of Agriculture may designate.` The importation of the mongoose, the so-called "flying foxes or fruit bats, the English sparrow, the starling, or such other birds or animals as the Secretary of Agriculture may from time to time declare injurious to the interest of agriculture or horticulture is hereby prohibited, and such species upon arrival at any of the ports of the United States shall be destroyed or returned at the expense of the owner. The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to make regulations for carrying into effect the provisions of this section. SEC. 3. That it shall be unlawful for any person or persons to deliver to any common carrier, or for any common carrier to transport from one State or Territory to another State or Territory, or from the District of Columbia or Alaska to any State or Territory, or from any State or Territory to the District of Columbia or Alaska, any foreign animals or birds the importation of which is prohibited, or the dead bodies or parts thereof of any wild animals or birds, where such animals or birds have been killed in violation of the laws of the State, Territory, or District in which the same were killed: Provided, That nothing herein shall prevent the transportation of any dead birds or animals killed during the season when the same may be lawfully captured, and the export of which is not prohibited by law in the State, Territory, or District in which the same are killed. SEC. 4. That all packages containing such dead animals, birds, or parts thereof, when shipped by interstate commerce, as provided in section one of this Act, shall be plainly and clearly marked, so that the name and address of the shipper and the nature of the contents may be readily ascertained on inspection of the outside of such packages. For each evasion or violation of this Act the shipper shall, upon conviction, pay a fine of not exceeding two hundred dollars; and the consignee knowingly receiving such articles so shipped and transported in violation of this Act shall, upon conviction, pay a fine of not exceeding two hundred dollars; and the carrier knowingly carrying or transporting the same shall, upon conviction, pay a fine of not exceeding two hundred dollars. SEC. 5. That all dead bodies, or parts thereof, of any foreign game animals, or game or song birds, the importation of which is prohibited, or the dead bodies, or parts thereof, of any wild game animals, or game or song birds transported into any State or Territory, or remaining therein for use, consumption, sale, or storage therein, shall upon arrival in such State or Territory be subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such State or Territory enacted in the exercise of its police powers, to the same extent and in the same manner as though such animals and birds had been produced in such State or Territory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced therein in original packages or otherwise. This Act shall not prevent the importation, transportation, or sale of birds or bird plumage manufactured from the feathers of barnyard fowl. (31 Stat. L., 187-189.) Other acts of Congress make further provision for the preservation and importation of game. The essential parts of these laws are as follows: * * * the Secretary of Agriculture shall have the power to authorize the importation of eggs of game birds for purposes of propagation, and he shall prescribe all necessary rules and regulations governing the importation of eggs of said birds for such purposes. (32 Stat. L., 285.) * * * the Secretary of Agriculture is hereby authorized whenever he shall deem it necessary for the preservation of game animals or birds to make and publish rules and regulations which shall modify the close seasons hereinbefore established, or provide different close seasons for different parts of Alaska, or place further restrictions and limitations on the killing of such animals or birds in any given locality, or to prohibit killing entirely for a period not exceeding five years in such locality. * * * And the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to make and publish such further restrictions as he may deem necessary to prevent undue destruction of wild game animals or wild birds. * * * nothing in this Act shall be construed to prevent the collection of specimens for scientific purposes, the capture or shipment of live animals and birds for exhibition and propagation, or the export from Alaska of specimens and trophies, under such restrictions and limitations as the Secretary of Agriculture may prescribe and publish. (32 Stat. L., 327.) * * * it shall be unlawful for any person to hunt, trap, capture, willfully disturb, or kill any bird of any kind whatever or take the eggs of such birds on any lands of the United States which have been set apart or reserved as breeding grounds for birds by any law, proclamation, or Executive order, except under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed from time to time by the Secretary of Agriculture. (Stat. 59th Cong., 1st sess., chap. 3565.) The meat and food inspection laws now in force are parts of the appropriation bill of the Department for the current year, and can there be found. Also there are several laws and parts of laws which govern the Department activities but are not here cited because they are deemed to be of minor importance. APPROPRIATIONS AND DISBURSEMENTS. The following statement of appropriations and disbursements, which is furnished by the Disbursing Officer, shows in detail all moneys expended by the Department of Agriculture since its earliest beginnings: Statement of appropriations, disbursements, and unexpended balances for the United States Department of Agriculture from the fiscal year 1839 to the fiscal year 1906, inclusive. Chemical analyses of vegetable substances. Collection of agricultural statistics, etc.. Chemical analyses of vegetable substances. Collection of agricultural sta- Collection of agricultural sta- Information in relation to con- Collection of agricultural sta- Collection of agricultural sta- Culture of cotton and tobacco. Purchase of sorghum seed.. To rebuild shop in propagating garden. Postage. Furniture, carpets, fuel, etc.. Salaries. Mar. 3, 1839 T 354 9 1839 $1,000.00 $1,000.00 1,000.00 1,000.00 642 1 1844 2,000.00 2,000.00 5 687 1 1845 2,000.00 2,000.00 5 757 1 1846 9 160 1 1847 Aug. 12, 1848 285 |