508

1887

50th Congress,
1st Session.

House of Representatives.

Report
No. 13.

Agricultural Experiment Stations.

January 13, 1888.—Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the
Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. Hatch, from the Committe on Agriculture, submitted the following

Report
(To accompany bill H. R. 4881.)

The Committee on Agriculture, having in charge the bill (H. R. 4881)
making an appropriation to carry into effect the provisions of an act approved March 2, 1887, entitled "An act to establish agricultural experiment
stations, in connection with the colleges established in the several
States, under the provisions of an act approved July 2, 1862, and of the
acts supplementary thereto," most respectfully report, having had the same
under consideration, that the act under which this appropriation is asked
has been construed by the First Comptroller of the Treasury as not making
the appropriations for the current fiscal year evidently intended thereby.

A special act of appropriation is therefore necessary to make operative
and effective the said act of March 2, 1887.

Accordingly, the Secretary of the Treasury, in a communication to the
House of Representatives, dated December 22, 1887, relating to urgent deficiencies
(H.R. Ex. Doc. No. 30, p. 7) makes an estimate for this purpose,
as follows:

Agricultueral Experiment Stations:
To carry into effect the provisions of an act approved March 2, 1887, entitled "An act
to establish agricultural experiment stations in conflection with the colleges
established in the several States under the provisions of an act approved July 2,
1862, and of the acts supplementary thereto," $585,000.

This communication is accompanied with copies of letters as follows
(Ex. Doc. No. 30, p. 19):

[Estimates for urgent deficiencies.]

Appendix D.—In relation to the estimate for "agricultural experiment stations." (See page 7.)

Treasury Department,
First Comptroller's Office,
Washington, D. C., December 3, 1887.

SIR: You may remember that there was some trouble about what was supposed to be
an appropriation made by the last Congress for agricultural experiment stations in the act
of March 2, 1887. (See 24 Stat., 440.) It was contended by some that section 5 of said act
made an appropriation of $15,000 a year to each one of said stations; but when the question
was presented to me I decided that the act itself did not make an appropriation;
that the fifth section only provided that Congress should, in the manner and to the
amount therein specified, make appropriations from year to year. You may also
remember that the agricultural convention, which met in this city in the month of September,
waited upon you as well as myself, to confer as to the best method of effecting
the purpose intended by the set; that said experiment stations were represented to have
been established in many of the States, and that they were in need of money to meet
obligations incurred under the belief that the act had made an appropriation. You will
observe, also, that, under said fifth section, the first payment was stipulated to be made