The officials who represent the Government in dealing with the Indians work under hard conditions, and also under conditions which render it easy to do wrong and very difficult to detect wrong.  Consequently they should be amply paid on the one hand, and on the other hand a particularly high standard of conduct should be demanded from them, and where misconduct can be proved the punishment should be exemplary.

In no department of governmental work in recent years has there been greater success than in that of giving scientific aid to the farming population, thereby showing them how most efficiently to help themselves.  There is no need of insisting upon its importance, for the welfare of the farmer is fundamentally necessary to the welfare of the Republic as a whole.  In addition to such work as quarantine against animal and vegetable plagues, and warring against them when here introduced, much efficient help has been rendered to the farmer by the introduction of new plants specially fitted for cultivation under the peculiar conditions existing in different portions of the country.  New cereals have been established in the semi-arid West.  For instance, the practicability of producing the best types of macaroni wheats in regions of an annual rainfall of only ten inches or thereabouts has been conclusively demonstrated.  Through the introduction of new rices in Louisiana and Texas the production of rice in this country has been made to about equal the home demand.  In the South-west the possibility of regrassing overstocked range lands has been demonstrated; in the North many new forage crops have been introduced, while in the East it has been shown that some of our choicest fruits can be stored and shipped in such a way as to find a profitable market abroad.

I again recommend to the favorable consideration of the Congress the plans of the Smithsonian Institution for making the Museum under its charge worthy of the Nation, and for preserving at the National Capital not only records of the vanishing races of men but of the animals of this continent which, like the buffalo, will soon become extinct unless specimens from which their representatives may be renewed are sought in their native regions and maintained there in safety.

The District of Columbia is the only part of our territory in which the National Government exercises local or municipal functions, and where in consequence the Government has a free hand in reference to certain types of social and economic legislation which must be essentially local or municipal in their character.  The Government should see to it, for instance, that the hygienic and sanitary legislation affecting Washington is of a high character.  The evils of slum dwellings, whether in the shape of crowded and congested tenement-house districts or of the back-alley type, should never be permitted to grow up in Washington.  The city should be a model in every respect for all the cities