Excerpt from Annual Reports of the Department of Agriculture, 1899 To the President: I have the honor to report upon the work of the Department of Agriculture for the year ending June 30, 1899. This report touches upon the work regularly carried on by the several Bureaus, Divisions, and Offices, and also indicates the new lines of scientific inquiry inaugurated by the Department for the benefit of producers in the several States. A brief summary precedes more extended consideration. I have also endeavored to give in sufficient detail the reasons for the estimates presented to Congress to carry on the work for the coming year. Summary. Weather Bureau. - The extension of the Weather Bureau service around the Caribbean Sea has been abundantly successful in noting the first indications of cyclones, forecasting their movements, and giving timely warning to our Navy, to merchant vessels, and to producers and others interested on land. Division of Chemistry. - This Division is becoming a necessity to every Department of the Government in the making of chemical analyses. Foods are investigated, preservatives of all kinds examined, sugar beets analyzed, etc. An interesting inquiry has been made into the change which takes place in the composition of grains grown repeatedly on the same soil. Division of Entomology. - Since Dr. Howard has shown owners of Smyrna fig trees on the Pacific coast how to get the fruit fertilized, there is good reason to believe that in a few years we shall obtain our fine figs from that locality. Investigation by this Division shows that house flies and mosquitoes may be greatly reduced by removing the propagating conditions. Division of Botany. - The Department is gathering information regarding the life history of the plants that supply commerce with india rubber and gutta-percha, and should Congress be pleased to give direction, it will seek the plant zones in our island possessions where these commodities may be produced. The United States now pays $30,000,000 annually for rubber. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.