Markets are being sought and opened up for surplus farm and factory products in Europe and in Asia.  The outlook for the education of the young farmer through agricultural college and experiment station, with opportunity given to specialize in the Department of Agriculture, is very promising.  The people of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands should be helped, by the establishment of experiment stations, to a more scientific knowledge of the production of coffee, india rubber, and other tropical products, for which there is demand in the United States.

There is widespread interest in the improvement of our public highways at the present time, and the Department of Agriculture is co-operating with the people in each locality in making the best possible roads from local material and in experimenting with steel tracks.  A more intelligent system of managing the forests of the country is being put in operation and a careful study of the whole forestry problem is being conducted throughout the United States.  A very extensive and complete exhibit of the agricultural and horticultural products of the United States is being prepared for the Paris Exposition.

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On the 10th of December, 1898, the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain was signed.  It provided, among other things, that Spain should cede to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands, that the United States should pay to Spain the sum of twenty millions of dollars, and that the civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories thus ceded to the United States should be determined by the Congress.  The treaty was ratified by the Senate on the 6th of February, 1899, and by the Government of Spain on the 19th of March following.  The ratifications were exchanged on the 11th of April and the treaty publicly proclaimed.  On the 2d of March the Congress voted the sum contemplated by the treaty, and the amount was paid over to the Spanish Government on the 1st of May.

In this manner the Philippines came to the United States.  The islands were ceded by the Government of Spain, which had been in undisputed possession of them for centuries.  They were accepted not merely by our authorized commissioners in Paris, under the direction of the Executive, but by the constitutional and well-considered action of the representatives of the people of the United States in both Houses of Congress.  I had every reason to believe, and I still believe that this transfer of sovereignty was in accordance with the wishes and the aspirations of the great mass of the Filipino people.