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Show 8 REPORT OF COMMISSIONEB OF m h AFF~AW. raising is one of the principal industries on many of the Indian reservations. In all cases where the presence of disease on a reserva-tion has been brought to my attention, I have taken up the subject with the Bureau of Animal Industry, and the Indian agent or super-intendent in charge of the reservation has been instmcted to assist the officers of the sister service in their task by every lawful means. It is still too early to turn over the work of this office in land matters to the General Land Office, be6ause the questions which arise daily with respect to Indian lands involve important and often diffi-cult considerations of human motive, dependent on a knowledge of Indians and their peculiarities. But I hope that, a few years hence, when the Indians as a whole are better able to take care of them-selves, all the Government's land business may be transacted where the bulk of it is now. Meanwhile, there is another branch of the Indian Office which I would gladly dispense with on the same eco-nomic grounds that have been the basis of my cooperative arrange-ments with the Reclamation and Forest services and the bureaus of Plant and Animal Industry. I refer to our architectural division. As this is conducted now, it means the maintenance of a corps of designers and draftsmen in Washiion who draw plans, prepare specifications, make estimates, and advise me on bids, all at from 1,000 to 3,000 miles' distance from the places where the work is to b6 done and the buildings used. When a contract has been let and work is to begin, I am obliged to resort to such means as happen to be at command for finding someone to superintend construct&. My first application is uniformly to the Supervising Architect of the Treasury, to &e whether any of his trained iuperint&dents are temporarily un-employed and willing to accept a detail to the job I have in hand. . I am in his debt for many favors of this sort, but, try as he may, he can not always find the right man at the moment I need him? I then cast about among the supermtendents who have served accept-ably at some past times, but am liable to disappointment in that quarter also, and then I have to trouble friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood where the work is t& be done, with appeals to find me a suitable person, or else I must fall back upon the local Indian 1 agent, school superintendent, clerk, carpenter or other employee to add this extra duty to the burdens he is already carrying, Fortu-nately our field service contains a good many men who have had ex-perience in the ~racticadl etails of house building and repairing in s frontiex country where mechaniics are few and every settler has to de- I pend on himself in emergencies. Still, this does not always imply such intimate familiarity with the building trades, and the materials i used in them, as would insure the Government's work against sharp practice or carelessness on the part of a contractor. |