TO THE LIBRARIANS OF THE UNITED States:

In their intimate contact with the public, librarians enjoy the unique position of being able to direct large numbers of people to information regarding the various activities of the Government. The Department of Agriculture welcomes the cooperation of all librarians in their effort to disseminate the results of its investigations and its advice upon the multiplicity of subjects which are briefly outlined in this pamphlet.

I take this occasion to congratulate the librarians of this country upon the service which they so efficiently rendered during the war and to express my appreciation of their active cooperation with this department. I hope the new and old contacts made may be continued and the work strengthened and extended.

Sincerely yours,

Clare Qualey

Assistant Secretary of Agriculture.

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THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

[The bureaus and offices given page numbers are the ones selected as having matter of interest to librarians. Appointment and disbursing offices and other divisions connected primarily with the administrative work of a department have been omitted.]

YOU AND YOUR GOVERNMENT.

One hundred years ago and more America and much of Europe were mainly concerned with the making of constitutions and the assembling of the machinery of Government. As the nineteenth century swept to a close we find this machinery running smoothly and the activities of our Government drawing closer to the affairs. of the people. "Judicial, Legislative, and Executive" were cold abstractions to the average man, but Agriculture, Mining, Forest Reserves, Fisheries, and Parks, were human and understandable. That John Smith should be elected to Congress was mainly John Smith's affair, and high tariff or low tariff largely a matter of party politics; on the other hand, that the wild swan should continue to nest in the marshes of Virginia and the oyster beds be protected; that New Orleans be cleared of rats, and California of ground squirrels-this was understandable human service and touched the health, prosperity, and happiness of the whole community.

As the twentieth century advances we find these great machines of Government, no matter where they exist-Washington, Paris, London, or the antipodes-réaching out more and more into human affairs. Australia moves her young people to and from consolidated high schools over federally run railroads, and New Zealand is ready to finance and plan a home for young couples. The Department of Commerce in Washington will find the leak in your industrial plant and will advise on how to make it a going concern. The Department of Agriculture will send a man to locate the worm that cuts your young cabbage, or hunt down the red spider when the leaves curl and the oranges fall.

Our taxes maintain a very expensive Government plant in Washington, and it is good business to use it. That, however, is up to us. The service is democratic; it is for the people, but also of the people. The call for help must come from the State and community. The more these resources are used the more helpful the Government will become and the nearer it will approach the solution of our simple human needs. A machine it must be, but if the people do their share it can be a machine pulsating with the heart of America, answering the needs of the twentieth century.

Will

What does this mean to the librarian in her world of books? she be merely a cataloguer of the hopes and fears of this "new day," with its bright promises and dark threats?

Never did patriotism say more sternly to each American, "See to it that no harm come to the State." The librarian, surely, has a part in the making of democracy. She is a necessary link between the needs of the people and the resources of the Government. But she must first know her problem, and no magic formula can be furnished. Let us suppose a poorly paid librarian, perhaps not trained but with plenty of common sense, starts out to study her library. "This is not the Library of Congress nor the State library," she says, "but the public library of Farmville, in Prince Edward County, supported by my people's money. It ought to be their tool house, the workshop of the community; their needs come first, and a set of Greek plays or the life of Confucius later-very much later!"

Good! Then she is ready for a walk about the town and miles into the country to study these needs of her own people and discover just where the library can give practical aid. If she walks with an open heart the scales will fall from her eyes and she will see her community as it really is and all the glory of the commonplace.

Mrs. Brown's fretful complaint that she can't sell her head lettuce, Mrs. Stanley's story of the sparrows and her wax cherries, and the gloomy struggle of the farmers with tobacco worms-why, these things matter tremendously. They make all the difference of money and comfort and happiness, and perhaps a chance to read Greek plays. Somewhere in the Department of Agriculture is the answer to these questions, somewhere in Washington the solution of many problems her community is up against, and the library can be the go-between.

With the help of the Bureau of Forestry she might have saved the magnificent elms of Main Street and the whispering aspens of High Street. A photograph exhibit down town and a road-building movie would have helped the good-roads crowd. And the pig club and the calf club projects of the banks, and the women in their struggles for a community cannery-why the Government has a wealth of pictures, bulletins, and first aids on just these things.

The librarian drops down out of breath at the top of a high hill to struggle with the idea. Below her lies the little town and beyond the encircling hills. The sunset light brings a magic of color, but the old story is new to her to-day.

Has there ever been a soil survey of Prince Edward County, and what did it tell? Around her are fields grown up in scrub pine, yellowing in a soil burnt out by a hundred years of tobacco. The hillsides are gashed with gullies redder than an Indian pipe; at the foot the muddy little river struggles with these washings toward Chesapeake Bay, and there the Government is ever busy dredging from the bottom this wealth of Prince Edward County.

What is the answer to it all, she wonders. It must be found and she must help the Government, for democracy is at stake. A Government rich in resources and a people intelligent to use these resources; this is her answer; intelligent use of Government resources that fit the case of her own people.

The sun is gone and against the clear horizon dim mountains lift their crests and a flight of winged clouds slide down the sunset sky; the librarian has lived through a great moment.

THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

OFFICE OF FARM MANAGEMENT,

This office has to do with the operation of the farm as a whole, as a business proposition. Farm-management investigations are designed to determine the most profitable ways of doing things on the farm, how to organize the farm to best advantage under given conditions, and how to operate to best advantage under a given plan of organization. Primarily the office is concerned with the improvement of farm practices, with the study of how to get yields that will return the greatest net profit per acre, and how to combine the several farm enterprises so as to yield the greatest possible net farm income.

Correlated with the straight farm practice and organization investigations conducted by this office are many other kindred investigations, bearing more or less directly upon the farm business. Briefly summarized, these are the lines followed in the work of this branch of the department:

Crop economics.-Studies in farm practice and cost of production of various field crops.

Live-stock economics.-Studies in farm practice and cost of production of various farm animals.

Farm management surveys.-Surveys of groups of farms in different localities designed to bring out the various factors which determine success or failure in farming, to determine the cost of the farmer's living, and to make available facts as to the status of tenancy in the United States.

Farm accounting.-Investigations in practical methods of farm bookkeeping.

Farm equipment.-Studies of farm machinery from the economic standpoint, and of the factors that make for efficiency in the use of farm power, both draft animals and tractors.

Application of farm economics to farm practice.-Special investigations designed to develop the best farm practices in the different agricultural regions.

History and distribution of farm enterprises.-Studies of agricultural geography, with reference to frost, dates of planting, etc. Farm tenancy. A study of prevailing systems of farm tenancy and underlying principles of tenant farming. To devise lease contracts which will secure an equitable division of farm income and which will tend to maintain a good system of farming.

The Office of Farm Management has several hundred slides illustrating farm-management subjects, which will be loaned to responsi