grapefruit) and new early ripening Satsuma oranges are under investigation in the Gulf Coast States. (Bureau of Indian Affairs of Department of Interior cooperating.)

Fruit disease investigations.-Investigations are conducted on the fungous, bacterial, virus and physiological diseases of fruits and fruit trees, including citrus and subtropical fruits, grapes, and small fruits, fruit rots and decays, and diseases of the pecan and other nuts, with a view of their control by spraying, disinfection, eradication and other methods, with a view to the protection of fruit and nut growing from serious losses due to diseases. (Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, and Entomology cooperating.)

Vegetable production, standardization, and improvement. These investigations include improvement in cultural practices for vegetables throughout the United States, improvement by breeding of superior varieties, production on muck soils, and field tests in cooperation with State Agricultural experiment stations for the purpose of establishing variety standards and variety descriptions to aid the grower in producing high quality commodities in the most economic manner possible. (Office of Experiment Stations, Virgin Islands, cooperating.)

Vegetable disease investigations.—Investigations are conducted on the fungous and virus diseases of vegetables to determine their cause, conditions under which they develop, localities where they are most serious, methods of disease transmission and to develop control measures of the maladies which are distributed more or less generally, in order to avert inestimable economic loss and a severely reduced food supply. (Bureau of Entomology cooperating.)

Potato investigations.-Experimental work is carried on in different regions with a view to developing through breeding and selection more desirable commercial varieties of potatoes and to improve cultural and storage practices. The work is generally applicable but special experiments are under way in the following States: Maine, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Louisiana, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Colorado, for the best development of the potato industry. (Bureau of Home Economics and Bureau of Chemistry and Soils cooperating.)

Fruit and vegetable handling, transportation and storage investigations.— These studies include experiments to determine the best methods of handling, transportation and storage of fruits and vegetables, including the control of diseases in storage, during transit and on the market; the effect of ethylene and other gases in coloring fruits and vegetables; methods of removing spray residues and investigations on the frozen pack method of preservation. The work is of general interest but more particularly for the regions of large production with extensive shipment and provides the fundamental studies for fruit and vegetable industries, for the improvement of handling, shipping and storing methods, or for other means of improving the quality of the product reaching the consumer. (Bureau of Agricultural Engineering, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Bureau of Chemistry and Soils and Bureau of Entomology cooperating.)

Fruit and vegetable utilization investigations.-These experiments include study of the fundamental factors involved in preservation of food by canning, the value of different varieties with respect to quality of the final product, the study of microbiological problems arising from frozen packing of berries and other fruits, to the fruit producing industries and bring about more effective utilization of the raw material and to facilitate the production and distribution of higher quality material without increased cost. (Bureau of Chemistry and Soils cooperating.)

Floriculture and landscape gardening.-Studies of adaptability for planting in various regions are made of different varieties of herbaceous and woody ornamental plants, including annuals, perennials, roses, and chrysanthemums, together with arrangement of plants and trees for ornamental effect, including their use on farmsteads and roadsides.

Bulb culture.-Experiments with tulips, hyacinths, narcissus, and other bulbs are under way with a view to aiding the rapidly developing bulb-growing industry of the United States. The work is of especial interest in the Pacific Northwest, North Carolina, and Long Island, N. Y., and the purpose of these studies is to develop reliable methods for the satisfactory production of bulbs in different localities.

Diseases of ornamental plants.-Investigations are conducted on the fungous, virus, and physiological diseases of ornamental plants and floral crops to determine the best means of control in order to prevent much individual loss

as well as damage to flourishing young industries since these problems receive comparatively little attention from State organizations. (Bureau of Entomol ogy cooperating.)

Pathological Laboratory.-The problems dealt with involve laboratory, greenhouse, and field experiments with bacterial diseases of crop and ornamental plants, such as crown gall, perennial apple canker, and bacterial blight of beans and peas, to aid the trop industries in understanding and effectively combating bacterial diseases that are widely distributed in the United States. Plant physiological laboratory.-The physiological processes in plants are investigated from the physical and biochemical standpoint to furnish fundamental knowledge for work in breeding, increasing production, disease and frost resistance, and in handling and storage and shipping methods, and to supply the understanding of numerous other problems more directly concerned with the maintenance of yield and quality, in the production of fruits and vege tables.

Cheyenne Horticultural Field Station.-Experiments under both dry land and irrigated conditions are conducted with fruits, vegetables, flowers, and shelterbelt plants. Fertilizer, pruning, soil management, thinning and pollination studies are conducted as well as breeding investigations for the purpose of developing better varieties resistant to drought and cold; and extensive experiments in shelter-belt plantings are in progress for improving home conditions throughout the Great Plains area.

DECREASE IN ESTIMATE

Mr. BUCHANAN. There is a decrease of $70,900. What about that decrease?

Doctor TAYLOR. That decrease is the legislative furlough decrease, minus the increase of $7,500, which is required for the maintenance of the citrus planting at Chinsegut Hill wild-life sanctuary in Florida, which was mentioned the other day.

Mr. BUCHANAN. That is the only one, you might say, in this appropriation?

Doctor TAYLOR. That was a transfer from Cereal Crops and Diseases to this item to protect that work.

Mr. BUCHANAN. For this year?

Doctor TAYLOR. For this year-this fiscal year.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Next year it will be an additional appropriation? Doctor TAYLOR. Yes. It would continue the same amount available here.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Yes; but it would be an additional appropriation so far as this year is concerned?

Doctor TAYLOR. Yes; so far as this subappropriation is concerned, but not so far as the department as a whole is concerned.

Mr. BUCHANAN. This $7,500 in this item is taken, is it not, from part of the others?

Doctor TAYLOR. Yes; it is taken from Cereal Investigations. Mr. BUCHANAN. In other words, there is a corresponding reduc tion in the other items?

Doctor TAYLOR. Yes, sir.

Mr. JUMP. While we are on this item, I suppose you recall that this is an appropriation that was struck a terrible blow last year, reducing it from $1,500,360 to $1.200,000-a $300,000 reduction. That reduction necessitated a sharp curtailment of the work.

Doctor WOODS. You asked the other day when that transfer was made. It was April 6, 1932, that the Attorney General approved the title for the transfer to the Biological Survey.

SCOPE OF WORK DONE UNDER APPROPRIATION

Mr. BUCHANAN. Well, do you want to make a general statement of this work, Doctor Taylor?

Doctor TAYLOR. This covers a very wide range of projects.

Mr. BUCHANAN. I do not care to go over each subhead separately. It makes the hearing too long and then it costs too much to print them.

Doctor TAYLOR. I would like to make this brief statement, that covers substantially all of the work which the department is doing upon the control of fruit and vegetable diseases as well as production, transportation, and storage problems of fruits and vegetables in the country. It covers not only the disease research work but also the breeding work, the cultural practice work, the experimental studies of the behavior of these products when subjected to different temperature conditions in transit and in storage, the studies of handling practices and to a certain extent the utilization of the product, as by freezing and in other ways, through which these perishables are made available for merchandise.

INVESTIGATION INTO PRESERVATION OF FRUITS BY FREEZING METHOD

Mr. HART. Who, in your department, discovered the method of preserving, say cherries, in a frozen state or semifrozen state in bulk packages?

Doctor TAYLOR. No one. So far as I know the discovery of that was made by Case & Martin, Chicago pie bakers, some 40 years ago. Mr. HART. That is why I asked the question. They use it in large quantities. A friend of mine sold it to them.

Doctor TAYLOR. Case & Martin discovered it in pie baking somewhere between 35 and 40 years ago, and so far as we know did not undertake the application of this to other fruits in any way that convinced them that other fruits could be handled effectively this way. We started in and did considerable work with strawberries. We could not see why that principle should not apply to the other perishable small fruits in particular and starting at that point there was developed gradually a very extensive application of freezing preservation of these soft fruits and experimentally of such fruits as the peach, although that is more difficult and less satisfactory so far.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Did these strawberry experiments work out? Doctor TAYLOR. Strawberries are working out so far very satisfactorily and from 40,000 to 100,000 barrels of strawberries now are frozen and merchandized in the frozen state annually.

INVESTIGATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES FOR GREAT PLAINS AND ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGIONS

One feature which I would mention also because of its magnitude and its importance, is the horticultural research work which is under way and has been now for some three years, in relation to the development of winter-hardy and drought-enduring fruits and vege

tables for the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions, which is headquartered at Cheyenne, Wyo., and which you may say is now just well under way, it having been established some three years ago. In that activity several States that are affected by it, particularly the States of Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, the western portion of South Dakota, and States of the Great Basin are depending upon us to carry the research features of that important fruit and vegetable improvement and cultural practice work forward. It is a territory the most of which is more than a mile above. sea level. Most of it is mountainous and rough, though scattered around through it are many ranchers and small farmers and stockmen, and there are quite a good many villages and cities carrying considerable population, which population has been in the main depending for its fruits and vegetables on shipped-in canned food. The work has started. It is exceptionally well manned and it constitutes a far-reaching research activity, with important practical objectives.

EXPERIMENTAL STATIONS

Mr. BUCHANAN. I notice here that you maintain experimental stations or laboratories at 36 different places, 7 of which are in California, 4 in Washington, and 2 in each of several other States, such as Louisiana, 3 in Georgia, I believe, and 2 in Texas. It looks to me like you have a surplus of stations in one State.

Doctor TAYLOR. Would it be helpful for me to briefly characterize the activity and the character of work that is under way at these several places?

Mr. BUCHANAN. I suspect you had better do that when you revise your remarks. And when you do that, put down the amount of money spent at each place.

Doctor TAYLOR. We can do that.

Mr. BUCHANAN. I am going to read those hearings on this matter. There has been a great amount of reduction in it from 1932. It is an important item. It covers a vast field of agricultural production; and you might put, in addition to the characterization of these stations and laboratories, the value of these products that are covered by this appropriation-the total value.

Doctor TAYLOR. Yes, sir. I would like to say at this stage that these field activities comprise not only the field stations where the land is either Federal owned or held under long leases and outof-door field work is carried along from year to year; but, also, those temporary field laboratories for the study of particular diseases and problems, such as we establish from time to time in order to have a temporary working headquarters for the specialist. Mr. BUCHANAN. The whole thing may be amply justified so far as I know, but the Members of the House ought to know it if it is.

General summary of horticultural crop farm values (based primarily on the 1929 Crops and Market figures, the census of 1930)

Much of this acreage is very valuable land. More than 6,000,000 acres of the total area is in orchard, a large proportion of which is occupied by mature trees of bearing age. The packing houses, farm storage houses, implements. etc., directly concerned in the management of the land and the handling of the crop involve large investments. It is believed that under normal conditions an estimated average per acre value, including all equipment, of $300 is conservative. On this basis the following summary is made: Value of land in fruits and nurseries, equipment, etc.. Value of land, buildings, and equipment-greenhouse industry (flowers and vegetables) _ _ _.

Value of land, buildings, and equipment, bulb farms_.

Value of land, buildings, and equipment, flowers and vegetable seed production--

Value of mushroom houses_

Total

$1,982, 400, 000`

222.442,000 9.122,000

4. 648,000 4. 864,000

2, 223, 476, 000·

Doctor TAYLOR. We desire that they shall, and we will undertaketo provide a statement that will inform them.

Mr. SANDLIN. The two Louisiana stations are located at Robson: and Shreveport, are they not?

Doctor TAYLOR. The station is at Robson out about 12 miles in the country from Shreveport and the laboratory is in Shreveport where it is housed in the courthouse.

Of these 36 field activities, some 13 or 14 are field stations in distinction from offices and laboratories where our men are headquartered.