The creation of an Executive Department to be known as the Department of Agriculture by the act of February 9 last was a wise and timely response to a request which had long been respectfully urged by the farmers of the country; but much remains to be done to perfect the organization of the Department so that it may fairly realize the expectations which its creation excited.  In this connection attention is called to the suggestions contained in the report of the Secretary, which is herewith submitted.  The need of a law officer for the Department such as is provided for the other Executive Departments is manifest.  The failure of the last Congress to make the usual provision for the publication of the annual report should be promptly remedied.  The public interest in the report and its value to the farming community, I am sure, will not be diminished under the new organization of the Department.

I recommend that the weather service be separated from the War Department and established as a bureau in the Department of Agriculture.  This will involve an entire reorganization both of the Weather Bureau and of the Signal Corps, making of the first a purely civil organization and of the other a purely military staff corps.  The report of the Chief Signal Officer shows that the work of the corps on its military side has been deteriorating.

The interests of the people of the District of Columbia should not be lost sight of in the pressure for consideration of measures affecting the whole country.  Having no legislature of its own, either municipal or general, its people must look to Congress for the regulation of all those concerns that in the States are the subject of local control.  Our whole people have an interest that the national capital should be made attractive and beautiful, and, above all, that its repute for social order should be well maintained.  The laws regulating the sale of intoxicating drinks in the District should be revised with a view to bringing the traffic under stringent limitations and control.

In execution of the power conferred upon me by the act making appropriations for the expenses of the District of Columbia for the year ending June 30, 1890, I did on the 17th day of August last appoint Rudolph Hering, of New York, Samuel M. Gray, of Rhode Island, and Frederick P. Stearns, of Massachusetts, three eminent sanitary engineers, to examine and report upon the system of sewerage existing in the District of Columbia.  Their report, which is not yet completed, will be in due course submitted to Congress.

The report of the Commissioners of the District is herewith transmitted, and the attention of Congress is called to the suggestions contained therein.

The proposition to observe the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by the opening of a world’s fair or exposition in some one of our great cities will be presented for the consideration of Congress.  The value and interest of such an exposition may well claim the promotion of the General Government.