RULINGS OF THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT AS TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ACT OF CONGRESS OF MARCH 2, 1887, ESTABLISHING AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS.

From copies of letters addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury and others by the First Comptroller of the Treasury, relating to the construction of the act of Congress of March 2, 1887, and acts supplementary thereto, the following digest has been prepared for the use of the stations. The sections are those of the act, the dates those of the decisions by the Comptroller:

Section 3-January 30, 1888.

That the annual financial statement of the stations, with vouchers, should not be sent to the Treasury Department, but that a copy simply of the report that is made to the governor is to be sent to the Secretary of the Treasury.

Section 3-January 31, 1888.

First. That the Treasury Department will not require officers of experiment stations to do or perform anything not specifically required by said bill.

Second. That the Secretary of the Treasury is not required to take a bond of the officers of said stations for the money paid over under the provisions of said act. Third. That no reports will be required from the stations directly to the Secretary of the Treasury; but the governor of the State must send to the Secretary of the Treasury a copy of the report made to him by the colleges or stations

Section 4-December 16, 1895.

The Solicitor of the Treasury writes: "I am of the opinion that there is no authority for an agricultural experiment station to sell its bulletins outside of the State or Territory. Congress appropriates for the publication and free distribution of the bulletins, and neither expressly or by necessary implication authorizes their sale."

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Section 5-March 4, 1887.

Congress only intended by the expression 'the sum of fifteen thousand dollars is hereby appropriated to each State,' to fix the amount that could be specially provided for by Congress in appropriations from year to year. Hence I conclude that section 5 does not make an appropriation; but that the same must be specially provided for by Congress."

Sections 5 and 6-March 10, 1888.

(1) The appropriations are intended for the fiscal year and not the calendar year. (2) The first annual report should be made on or before the 1st day of February, 1889, and said report should include simply the operations of the preceding fiscal year, not down to and including December 31, but up to and including June 30, 1888. (3) The balance unexpended at the end of the fiscal year, the 30th of June preceding the report, must be accounted for in the report.

(4) The one-fifth proviso for building in section 5 can be made out of the first annual appropriation, to wit, that which commences on the 1st day of July, 1887, and terminates on the 30th of June, 1888.

(5) The intention of Congress was to make quarterly payments, not in advance, but at the end of each quarter.

Section 5, proviso-March 22, 1888.

"I have been informed that there is no farm connected with the agricultural college in Delaware. The act provides that one-fifth of the amount appropriated can be expended in the creation, enlargement, or repair of a building or buildings for carrying on the work of the station receiving the appropriation. I am in doubt whether, with this qualification, out of the balance of the appropriation a farm could either be purchased or rented. Another question in my mind is as to the competency of the legislature which was in session at the date of the passage of the act to accept as it assumed to do, of the provisions of the act, the ninth section of which provides 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.'”

Section 5, proviso—February 3, 1893.

"It was held by my predecessor that the fund provided by the act of March 2, 1887, should not be used for the purchase or rent of land. In this opinion I am inclined to concur, for though there is no express prohibition, the whole tenor of the restrictive clauses as to lands and buildings, not only in this act, but in the cognate acts of July 2, 1862, and August 30, 1890, would seem to support it."

Section 6-April 24, 1888.

At the end of the present fiscal year, to wit, June 30, any portion of the $15,000 which shall have been received, up to and including the payment made on the 1st day of July, which is unexpended, or which may not be necessary to pay claims under contracts made for the benefit of said agricultural station must be deducted from the next annual appropriation, as specified in said sixth section.

Section 6-August 2, 1888.

The fiscal year commences on the 1st day of July, corresponding with the fiscal year of the Government.

An agricultural station entitled to the benefits of said appropriations made by Congress can anticipate the payment to be made July 1, and make contracts of purchases prior to that time, if it shall be necessary to carry on the work of the station. Of course, no portion of said appropriations paid in quarterly installments can be drawn from the Treasury unless needed for the purposes indicated in the act; and so much of what is so drawn as may not have been expended within the year must be accounted for as part of the appropriation for the following year.

Section 8-January 30, 1888.

The State of New York ought to designate whether to the college or to the station, or to both, it desires the appropriation to be applied. The eighth section of the act seems to authorize the State to apply such benefits to experimental stations it may have established as it desires.

Where there are no experimental stations connected with the colleges, the legislatures of such States must connect the agricultural experiment station with the colleges already established under the act of July 2, 1862; there is no authority in the act authorizing the establishment of agricultural experiment stations independ ent of said colleges.

The act contemplates that where stations have already been established disconnected from the colleges, the legislatures of such States may make such provisions in regard thereto as they may deem proper; but it does not authorize the establishment of stations except in connection with the colleges that were at that time or、 might thereafter be established under the act of July 2, 1862.

Section 8-February 14, 1888.

Where there is an agricultural college or station which may have been established by State authority, and is maintained by the State, the eighth section of the above act would authorize the State to designate the station to which it desired the appropriation to be applied, whether to one or more, or all, and the Secretary of the Treasury should make the payment under the appropriation to whichever one the State might designate.

Sections 1 and 8–February 15, 1888.

(1) When an agricultural college or station has been established under the act of July 2, 1862, each college is entitled to the benefits of the provisions of said act (i. e., of March 2, 1887).

(2) In a State where an agricultural college has been established under the act of July 2, 1862, and agricultural stations have also been established, either under the act of July 2, 1862, or by State authority, before March 2, 1887, the legislature of such State shall determine which one of said institutions, or how many of them, shall receive the benefits of the act of March 2, 1887.

(3) If the legislature of any State in which an agricultural college has been established under the act of July 2, 1862, desires to establish an agricultural station which shall be entitled to the benefits of said act, it must establish such station in connection with said college.

Proviso to sections 1 and 8-December 7, 1888.

It is within the power of the legislature of any State that has accepted the provisions of said act of March 2, 1887, to dispose of the amount appropriated by Congress for said station to either one or all of the agricultural colleges or stations which may have been established in said State by virtue of either the provisions of the act of July 2, 1862, or the provisions of said eighth section of the act of March 2, 1887.

The whole responsibility rests upon the State legislature as to how the fund appropriated by Congress shall be distributed among these various institutions of the State, provided there is one or more agricultural colleges with which an agricultural station is connected, or one or more agricultural stations.

Section 8-January 28, 1889.

The act of the State of Georgia in authorizing the governor to receive the fund to which the State may be entitled under the act of March 2, 1887, is not in conflict with any of the provisions of said act. If a State has established an agricultural college or station under the act of July 2, 1862, or if it has established an agricultural station in connection with said college, as provided in the eighth section of the act of March 2, 1887, the legislature can authorize some person or persons to receive the money donated by the Government and direct its application in such way and manner as it seems best to carry out the objects and purposes of said acts of Congress to either the colleges or the station, or to both.

Section 9-February 4, 1888.

It appears by the statement of Representative Blount that there was a session of the legislature of the State of Georgia after the passage of the act and before the first payment became due, October 1, 1887, and which did not adjourn until after that time. That being the case, under the proviso of the section, the governor of

the State can not assent to that payment, which was to be made October 1, 1887. The legislature having adjourned before the second payment became due, without accepting the provisions of the bill, no further payment can be made to said State until the legislature thereof shall have accepted the provisions of the bill. You will observe the language of the proviso, "that payment of the installments of the appropriation herein made as shall become due to any State before the adjournment of the regular session of its legislature," applies, certainly, only to such installments as become due before the final adjournment. The idea seems to be to give the legislature the full time before it adjourns to accept the provisions of the bill or not; but it is plain to my mind that only such payments as become due before the adjournment of the legislature can be accepted by the governor of the State.

RULINGS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE ON THE WORK AND EXPENDITURES OF AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS.'

In connection with examinations of the work and expenditures of the agricultural experiment stations established in accordance with the act of Congress of March 2, 1887, under authority given to the Secretary of Agriculture by Congress, questions have arisen which have seemed to make it advisable to formulate the views of this Department on certain matters affecting the management of the stations under that act. The statements given below have therefore been prepared, to cover the points which seem to require special attention:

EXPENDITURES FOR PERMANENT SUBSTATIONS.

This Department holds that the expenditure of funds appropriated in accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress of March 2, 1887, for the maintenance of permanent substations is contrary to the spirit and intent of said act. The act provides for an experiment station in each State and Territory, which, except in cases specified in the act, is to be a department of the college established under the act of Congress of July 2, 1862. The objects of the stations, as defined in the first-mentioned act, are evidently of such a character as to necessitate the services of scientific and expert workers. Most of the lines of investigation named in the act are general, rather than local, and involve scientific equipment and work. It is obviously the intent that the stations established under this act shall carry on important investigations which shall be of general benefit to the agriculture of the several States and Territories. The sum of $15,000, which is annually appropriated by Congress under this act for each station, is only sufficient to carry out a limited number of investigations of the kinds contemplated by the act.

As the work of the stations in the different States has developed, it has been found necessary to limit, rather than expand, the lines of work of the individual stations. Thorough work in a few lines has been found much more effective and productive of more useful results than small investigations in numerous lines. When we consider the nature of the investigations, the amount of money provided for the work of each station, and the fact that the act expressly provides for only a single station in connection with each college, it becomes very clear that expenditures such as are necessary to effectively maintain permanent substations ought not to be made from the funds granted by Congress to the States and Territories for experiment stations. The maintenance of permanent substations as a rule involves the erection of buildings and the making of other permanent improvements. The sums of money which can be expended for permanent improvements under the act of Congress aforesaid are so small that it is clear they were not intended to meet the needs of more than one station in each State and Territory.

When the legislature of a State or Territory has given its assent to the provisions of the act of Congress of March 2, 1887, and has designated the institution which shall receive the benefits of said act, it would seem to have exhausted its powers in the matter. The responsibility for the maintenance of an experiment station under said act devolves upon the governing board of the institution thus designated. If the legislature of the State or Territory sees fit to provide funds for the equipment U. S. Dept. Agr., Office of Experiment Stations Circular 29. 9161-No. 47————6