REPORT.

In conformity with the provisions of the statute I herewith submit my first annual report:

On the 1st day of February, 1893, I assumed the office of Dairy Commissioner, which had been created by chapter 202 of the Laws of 1884. I found the work under the charge of ten assistant commissioners, as follows:

First Division.- George L. Flanders, Albany, N. Y., comprising the following counties: Albany, Otsego, Schenectady, Schoharie, Rensselaer and Washington.

Second Division.-B. F. Van Valkenburgh, 288 Greenwich street, New York city, comprising the following counties: Kings, New York, Queens, Richmond, Suffolk, and one-half of Westchester.

Third Division.-F. D. Tuthill, Washingtonville, N. Y., comprising the following counties: Columbia, Delaware, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and onehalf of Westchester.

Fourth Division.- James H. Brown, Holland Patent, N. Y., comprising the following counties: Oswego, Oneida, Herkimer, Montgomery, Fulton, Hamilton, Warren, Essex.

Fifth Division.-Charles D. Moore, Lowville, N. Y., comprising the following counties: Lewis, Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Franklin, Clinton.

Sixth Division.- Peter H. Parker, Coventryville, N. Y., comprising the following counties: Broome, Chenango, Cortland, Madison, Onondaga, Tioga, Tompkins.

Seventh Division.- Patrick J. Sutley, Castile, N. Y., comprising the following counties: Chemung, Genesee, Livingston, Schuyler, Steuben, Wyoming.

Eighth Division.- John H. Foley, 354 Plymouth avenue, Rochester, N. Y., comprising the following counties: Cayuga, Monroe, Ontario, Seneca, Wayne, Yates.

Ninth Division.-George J. Zillig, 333 Main street, Buffalo, N. Y., comprising the following counties: Erie, Niagara, Orleans, Tenth Division.-James W. McMahon, Ellicottsville, N. Y., comprising the following counties: Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua.

This condition I found to be efficacious and have continued the same. No changes were made in the personnel of the Dairy Commission and the work continued along the same lines as heretofore until the tenth of April, when by chapter 338 of the Laws of 1893, the Agricultural Department was created. By the express terms of the act the Dairy Commissioner in office at the time of its passage was to perform the duties prescribed under the law by the Commissioner of Agriculture until such Commissioner was appointed and qualified. statute creating the Department of Agriculture was, according to the construction of the Statutory Revision Commission, to be a continuance of the Dairy Commission, with added powers and duties pertaining to agriculture and the laws governing the same.

The

By this act the following subjects not heretofore under the supervision of the Dairy Commission were added to the work of this department:

First. The department was charged with the execution of the laws relating to agriculture and agricultural products. Second. The Commissioner of Agriculture was given power to appoint a director of farmers' institutes.

Third. The suppression of infectious and contagious diseases among domestic animals, except tuberculosis and glanders.

Under this provision the Commissioner of Agriculture was given power to employ as many medical and veterinary practitioners and such other persons as he might deem necessary to assist him. By a provision of this act all persons in the employ of the Governor at the time of its passage were to be continued in the employ of the State upon the same terms as heretofore until they should be notified by the Commissioner of Agriculture, He was also to prescribe rules and regulations for the suppression and prevention of diseases among domestic animals, and for the disinfection of premises, buildings, railroad cars, vessels and other objects from or by which infection or contagion might take place or be conveyed.

Fourth. Under certain conditions the Commissioner of Agriculture was authorized to appoint an agent for the purpose of preventing disease among bees when it was made to appear to him by five or more actual beekeepers that a condition known as foul-brood existed in a locality.

Fifth. It also made it the duty of the Commissioner of Agriculture to appoint agents to prevent disease in fruit trees and eradicate the same where it was made to appear to him that certain conditions of disease, defined by the statute, existed.

Sixth. The Commissioner of Agriculture was also, while not charged with any particular duties as to the same, to have a supervisory interest in the agricultural experiment stations of the State, situated at Geneva, N. Y., and Cornell university. They were annually required to make a full report of their proceedings, receipts and expenditures.

Seventh. The State meteorological bureau and weather service were also placed under the control and management of this department.

In addition to the duties aforesaid, a detailed statement of the expenditures of moneys appropriated to the State agricultural society and the county societies was to be furnished to the Commissioner of Agriculture by such organizations, and he was to furnish the Legislature with his estimate of the amounts required for all such purposes for the ensuing year.

On the 19th of April, 1893, I was appointed Commissioner of Agriculture and have since performed the duties of that office. I have continued the division of territory in the work of the department in the districts arranged under the Dairy Commissioner. No changes have been made during the year in the deputies in charge of the several districts.

In May last Mr. Patrick J. Sutley, of Castile, N. Y., in charge of the seventh division, died. At the date of this report his place in the department has not been filled, the work in that division having been performed during the season by the experts and agents formerly in the employ of the Dairy Commission and who have been retained in the employ of this department during the season. As the district is a large and important one it will be necessary for the interest of all concerned that a successor to Mr. Sutley shall be appointed at a date sufficiently early that he can inform himself as to the requirements of the work in the department before the opening of the cheese factory season of 1894.

Immediately after my assumption of the duties of this office, I found that no statistics showing the number and location of factories engaged in the manufacture of butter and cheese had ever been compiled by the Dairy Commission, and that there was no data extant upon the subject, except such as might be derived from the United States census. I deemed it advisable that the department should have accurate information as a basis for their work, showing the number and location of butter and cheese factories in the State, and their product. With that end in view, I instructed all the agents of the department that, as they were necessarily required in their work to traverse the various parts of the State, they should, while so engaged, procure this information. As a result, we secured what I believe to be an accurate list of the factories engaged in the production of butter and cheese, from which it appears that out of the sixty counties in the State, there are twelve, namely: Greene, Hamilton, Kings, New York, Putnam, Queens, Richmond, Rockland,

Seneca, Suffolk, Ulster and Westchester, in which no butter or cheese is manufactured in factories.

In the remaining forty-eight counties there are 255 butter factories and 1,156 cheese factories; also 213 factories making both butter and cheese; the whole number of factories in the State is 1,624; their product for the year 1892 was 19,497,357 pounds of butter and 131,148,310 pounds of cheese. These factories are distributed and their product, by counties, as follows: