advisable having due regard to the varying conditions and needs of the respective states or territories.

SEC. 3. That in order to secure, as far as practicable, uniformity of methods and results in the work of said stations, it shall be the duty of the United States commissioner of agriculture to furnish forms, as far as practicable, for the tabulation of results of investigation or experiments; to indicate, from time to time, such lines of inquiry as to him shall seem most important; and, in general, to furnish such advice and assistance as will best promote the purposes of this act. 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 said commissioner of agriculture, and to the secretary of the treasury of the United States.

SEC. 4. That bulletins or reports of progress shall be published at said stations at least once in three months, one copy of which shall be sent to each newspaper in the states or territories in which they are respectively located, and to such individuals actually engaged in farming as may request the same, and as far as the means of the station will permit. Such bulletins or reports and the annual reports of said stations shall be transmitted in the mails of the United States free of charge for postage, under such regulations. as the postmaster-general may from time to time prescribe.

SEC. 5. That for the purpose of paying the necessary expenses of conducting investigations and experiments and printing and distributing the results as herein before prescribed, the sum of fifteen thousand dollars per annum is hereby appropriated to each state, to be specially provided for by congress in the appropriations from year to year, and to each territory entitled under the provisions of section eight of this act, out of any money in the treasury proceeding from the sales of public lands, to be paid in equal quarterly payments, on the first day of January, April, July and October in each year, to the treasurer or other officer duly appointed by the governing boards of said colleges to receive the same, the first payment to be made on the first day of October, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven; Provided, however, that out of the first annual appropriation so received by any station an amount not exceeding one-fifth may be expended in the erection, enlargement, or repair of a building or buildings necessary for carrying on the work of such station; and thereafter an amount not exceeding five per centum of such annual appropriation may be so expended.

SEC. 6. That whenever it shall appear to the secretary of the treasury from the annual statement of receipts and expenditures of any of said stations that a portion of the preceding annual appropriation remains unexpended, such amount shall be deducted from the next succeeding annual appropriation to such station, in order that

the amount of money appropriated to any station shall not exceed the amount actually and necessarily required for its maintenance and support.

SEC. 7. That nothing in this act shall be construed to impair or modify the legal relation existing between any of the said colleges and the government of the states or territories in which they are respectively located.

SEC. 8. That in states having colleges entitled under this section to the benefits of this act and having also agricultural experiment. stations established by law separate from said colleges, such states shall be authorized to apply such benefits to experiments at stations so established by such states; and in case any state shall have established under the provisions of said act of July second aforesaid, an agricultural department or experimental station, in connection with any university, college or institution not distinctively an agricultural college or school, and such state shall have established or shall hereafter establish a separate agricultural college or school, which shall have connected therewith an experimental farm or station, the legis lature of such state may apply in whole or in part the appropriation by this act made, to such separate agricultural college, or school, and no legislature shall by contract express or implied disable itself from so doing.

SEC. 9. That the grants of money authorized by this act are made subject to the legislative assent of the several states and territories to the purposes of said grants; Provided, that payment of such installments of the appropriation herein made as shall become due to any state before the adjournment of the regular session of its legislature meeting next after the passage of this act shall be made upon the assent of the governor thereof duly certified to the secretary of the treasury.

SEC. 10. Nothing in this act shall be held or construed as binding the United States to continue any payments from the treasury to any or all the states or institutions mentioned in this act, but congress may at any time amend, suspend or repeal any or all the provisions of this act. Approved March 2, 1887.]

THE OMNIBUS BILL.

AN ACT, to Provide for the Division of Dakota into Two States, and to Enable the People of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington to Form Constitutions and State Governments, and to be Admitted into the Union on an Equal Footing with the Original States, and to Make Donations of Public Lands to Such States.

Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress Assembled:

SECTION 1. The inhabitants of all that part of the area of the United States now constituting the Territories of Dakota, Montana, and Washington, as at present described, may become the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington respectively as hereinafter provided.

the

SEC. 2. The area comprising the Territory of Dakota, shall for purposes of this act, be divided on the line of the seventh standard parallel produced due west to the western boundary of said territory; and the delegates elected as hereinafter provided to the constitutional convention in districts north of said parallel shall assemble in convention at the time prescribed in this act, at the city of Bismarck; and the delegates elected in districts south of said parallel, shall at the same time, assemble in convention at the city of Sioux Falls.

SEC. 3. That all persons who are qualified by the laws of said territories to vote for representatives to the legislative assemblies thereof, are hereby authorized to vote for and choose delegates to form conventions in said proposed states; and the qualifications for delegates to such conventions shall be such as by the laws of said territories respectively persons are required to possess to be eligible to the legislative assemblies thereof; and the aforesaid delegates to form said conventions shall be apportioned within the limits of the proposed states in such districts as may be established as herein provided, in proportion to the population in each of said counties and districts, as near as may be, to be ascertained at the time of making said apportionments by the persons hereinafter authorized to make the same, from the best information obtainable in each of which districts three delegates shall be elected, but no elector shall vote for more than two persons for delegates to such conventions; that said

apportionments shall be made by the governor, the chief justice and the secretary of said territories; and the governor of said territories, shall by proclamation order an election of the delegates aforesaid in each of said proposed states, to be held on the Tuesday after the second Monday in May, 1889, which proclamation shall be issued on the 15th day of April, 1889; and such election shall be conducted, the returns made, the result ascertained and the certificates to persons elected to such convention, issued in the same manner as is prescribed by the laws of the said territories regulating elections therein for delegates to congress; and the number of votes cast for delegates in each precinct shall also be returned. The number of delegates to said conventions respectively shall be seventy-five; and all persons resident in said proposed state who are qualified voters of said territories as herein provided shall be entitled to vote upon the election of delegates, and under such rules and regulations as said conventions may prescribe not in conflict with this act, upon the ratification or rejection of the constitutions.

SEC. 4. That the delegates to the conventions elected as provided for in this act, shall meet at the seat of government of each of said territories, except the delegates elected in South Dakota, who shall meet at the city of Sioux Falls, on the 4th day of July, 1889, and after organization, shall declare on behalf of the people of said proposed states that they adopt the constitution of the United States; whereupon the said conventions shall be, and are hereby authorized, to form constitutions and state governments for the said proposed states respectively. The constitutions shall be republican in form, and make no distinction in civil or political rights on account of race or color, except as to Indians not taxed, and not to be repugnant to the constitution of the United States and the principles of the declaration of independence. And said conventions shall provide by ordinances irrevocable without the consent of the United States and the people of said states:

First. That perfect toleration of religious sentiment shall be secured, and that no inhabitant of said states shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship.

Second. That the people inhabiting said proposed states do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof and to all lands lying within said limits owned or held by any Indian or Indian tribes: and that until the title thereto shall have been extinguished by the United States the same shall be and remain subject to the disposition of the United States, and said Indian lands shall remain under the absolute jurisdiction and control of the congress of the United States; that the lands belonging to citizens of the United States residing without the said states shall never be taxed at a higher rate than the lands belonging to residents thereof; that no taxes shall be imposed by the states on lands or property therein

belonging to or which may hereafter be purchased by the United States or reserved for its use. But nothing herein, or the ordinances herein provided for, shall preclude the said states from taxing as other lands are taxed any lands owned or held by any Indian who has severed his tribal relations, and has obtained from the United States or from any person a title thereto by patent or other grant, save and except such lands as have been or may be granted to any Indian or Indians under any act of congress containing a provision exempting the lands thus granted from taxation; but said ordinances shall provide that all such lands shall be exempt from taxation by said states so long and to such extent as such act of congress may prescribe.

Third. That the debts and liabilities of said territories shall be assumed and paid by said states respectively.

Fourth. That provision shall be made for the establishment and maintenance of systems of public schools, which shall be open to all children of said states, and free from sectarian control.

SEC. 5 That the convention which shall assemble at Bismarck shall form a constitution and state government for a state to be known as North Dakota, and the convention which shall assemble at Sioux Falls shall form a constitution and state government for a state to be known as South Dakota; Provided, that at the election for delegates to the constitutional convention in South Dakota, as herein before provided, each elector may have written or printed on his ballot the words "for the Sioux Falls constitution," or the words, "against the Sioux Falls constitution," and the votes on this question shall be returned and canvassed in the same manner as for the election provided for in section three of this act; and if a majority of all votes cast on this question shall be "for the Sioux Falls constitution," it shall be the duty of the convention which may assemble at Sioux Falls as herein provided, to resubmit to the people of South Dakota for ratification or rejection at the election hereinafter provided for in this act, the constitution framed at Sioux Falls and adopted Nov. 3, 1885, and also the articles and propositions separately submitted at that election, including the question of locating the temporary seat of government, with such changes only as relate to the name and boundary of the proposed state, to the reapportionment of the judicial and legislative districts, and such amendments as may be necessary in order to comply with the provisions of this act; and if a majority of the votes cast on the ratification or rejection of the constitution shall be for the constitution irrespective of the articles separately submitted, the state of South Dakota shall be admitted as a state in the Union under said constitution as hereinafter provided; but the archives, records and books of the Territory of Dakota shall remain at Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, until an agreement in reference thereto is reached by said states. But if at the election for delegates to the constitutional convention in South Dakota a majority of all the votes cast at that election shall be against the Sioux Falls con