STATEMENT of amounts paid from the moneys appropriated for the suppression of contagious and infectious diseases among domestic animals (chapter 726, Laws 1898).

It is with deep regret that I announce to your honorable body the death of my predecessor, Hon. Josiah K. Brown, of Holland Patent, N. Y., on August 7, 1894. Mr. Brown was Dairy Commissioner from 1884 until 1893, when, on account of failing health, he was forced to resign.

The great service rendered by Mr. Brown to the people of this State during his official life is a matter of record, and is too great for me to attempt to tell at this time. At the time he assumed the duties of the office of Dairy Commissioner there were manufactured and sold in the State many million pounds of oleomargarine and kindred products per annum, and the milk sold for consumption in the cities and villages of the State was adulterated to such an extent that pure milk was the exception. Mr. Brown so directed the work of the department during his incumbency that, at the time of his resignation, there was no imitation butter made or sold in this State, and the milk supply of the people was so improved that pure milk was the rule rather than the exception.

Such was his earnestness and integrity, during his nine years of official life, that, upon his retirement therefrom, there were none to criticise, while all agreed that he had so conducted the work intrusted to him that the results would ever stand as a monument to his entire fitness for the place he had occupied.

Within one week from the time of Mr. Brown's death, Dr. Reuben D. Clark, of this department, died. Dr. Clark had been the department chemist since 1884; as such his work is also a matter of record and importance. After thorough research, study and experiments, Dr. Clark demonstrated, and so announced in his annual report to this department, in 1886, that oleomargarine and kindred products, when taken into the stomach in a raw, uncooked condition was unhealthful. This proposition has never been successfully attacked by any physiologist of standing, that I am aware of. A few chemists have endeavored to brace up previously announced opinions by ignoring the physiological question, and attempting to belittle the work of Dr. Clark as a chemist. It seems safe to say, at a distance of ten years from the announcement, that if the imitation butter interests have failed to disprove Dr. Clark's position, that it is beyond their power to do so. He was largely quoted by scientific men in all parts of the country on this question.

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