obtained these refuges, which can be acquired very reasonably; and I certainly suggest that you direct your attention to those areas located on this so-called tributary route.

Mr. HENDERSON. In the Okefenokee region in southern Georgia we have just taken an option on 300,000 acres.

BIRD BANDING

Mr. CANNON. To what extent do you find that you have cooperation in returning banded birds?

Mr. GABRIELSON. We band a total of about 40,000 ducks a year at our different stations. Most of this is done without expense to us by volunteer cooperators who do it for fun, as a hobby.

Even

About 215,000 ducks and geese have been banded. We get back each year about 10 to 12 percent of the newly banded birds. tually out of each lot branded we will get back about 25 percent.

By means of this banding method we are getting a more accurate picture than we ever did on the migration routes, flyways, and general status of these birds. For example, we are getting to the point now where we know where the birds that we raise on Bear River go to spend the winter. We also know that any particular lot of birds go to the same wintering place each year.

For instance, we know that nearly all of the birds that Jack Minor bands on the Northern shore of Lake Ontario on his Canadian banding station winter in a restricted area on the North Carolina coast; which shows that the geese using this migration route come from different breeding grounds than do those that furnish sport for the hunters of New England.

Some of the birds that we band out on the Bear River Refuge in Utah go across the country and some of the banded red heads from this area have been reported later from Michigan, New York, Maryland, and Virginia.

Mr. THURSTON. Why do some of them fly east and west and the others fly north and south?

Mr. GABRIELSON. That is one of the unsolved problems, but it is a fact that some of the birds from the Bear River fly right across the country toward the east, even going first in a northeasterly direction. And we know that most of the ducks from Lake Ontario fly across the mountains and on down to the coast of Virginia and North Carolina and stay there for the winter.

Mr. THURSTON. When they go back, do they go the same way? Mr. GABRIELSON. They go back the same way as far as we know. Mr. THURSTON. And these other birds go east and west, instead of north and south, like most birds?

Mr. GABRIELSON. Yes.

The theory is that this bird extended its range gradually from some more isolated nesting area, and still follows the route back to the wintering ground that it followed over that original extension. We don't actually know that, but it is generally accepted as the most logical explanation of the development of all migration routes.

Mr. THURSTON. Are there any of the old passenger pigeons left? Mr. GABRIELSON. No.

Mr. THURSTON. That is entirely extinct, is it?

Mr. GABRIELSON. The last one that we have a record of died at the zoo in Cincinnati in 1914.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1936.

BUREAU OF PUBLIC ROADS

STATEMENT OF THOMAS H. MacDONALD, CHIEF

Mr. CANNON. Mr. MacDonald, we are very glad to have you with us again.

Mr. MACDONALD. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CANNON. Your estimates are filed in a slightly different position in the bill this year.

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes; the estimates for the continuing program are filed under the general Public Works program, and only what may be termed the incidental items are carried in the regular agricultural departmental bill.

GENERAL STATEMENT

Mr. CANNON. If you care to make a general statement before we take up the detailed estimates, we will be glad to hear you at this time.

WORK ACCOMPLISHED UNDER P. W. A. FUNDS

Mr. MACDONALD. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, during the year just closed, the Bureau of Public Roads has been carrying on a large program of public construction. During the fiscal year we brought to completion a total of 18,594 miles of various types of highways under the Public Works appropriations.

In addition, the Bureau has supervised the construction of roads. for the Public Works Administration, to the total cost of about $64,000,000 on dockets turned over to us by the Public Works Administration for carrying into execution.

The Bureau also carried on the supervision of work relief projects in the drought-stricken States for which certain Public Works appropriations were made available, and for which the Relief Administration, or its various agencies, supplied the labor.

HIGHWAY RESEARCH STUDIES

In addition to the carrying on of the general road program, we have continued our program of research, particularly in the field of subgrade soil studies. We are giving special attention to the methods of stabilizing bad soils, believing that by means of stabilization we will accomplish two purposes, first, in adding to the life of so-called standard pavements and decreasing the maintenance costs and, second in making it possible to build secondary roads, feeder roads, and farm roads, at a lowered cost, or at a low cost that will not require a constantly increasing maintenance.

Mr. CANNON. That feature of your work is something in the nature of a departure?

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes.

Mr. CANNON. You have been concerned heretofore with primary and secondary systems.

Mr. MACDONALD. That is true. We have been carrying on the study of soils for a great many years, but only in the last year or so have we felt that we have made very definite progress in the ability

to predetermine the behavior of different types of soil and to find methods of combating their bad effects on road surfaces when used as subgrades.

This, to me, points to one of the real accomplishments of research in the Department of Agriculture. We have been able to reduce the results of scientific knowledge to a practical utility in that field, so that it will mean much greater durability for both our standard pavements, or higher cost roads, and our low cost roads.

The disclosures in that field are as interesting as any of the disclosures that have come about in some of the other scientific pursuits of the Department.

Mr. THURSTON. Is that in the roadbed, or in the surface?

Mr. MACDONALD. The roadbed formed by the subgrade soil. Mr. THURSTON. I thought perhaps you had reference to oiling the surface of roads.

Mr. MACDONALD. The stabilization of the subgrades will have a major effect upon the durability of the oil surfaces and of the other surfaces of the cheaper types which we are attempting to develop for the extensive mileage of secondary roads.

The wide variation in the behavior of different soils when used as subgrades accounts for a great deal of the deterioration we have suffered in our roads. For example, we are finding that cracks in concrete pavements, frost boils in gravel surfaces, and the other defects which have appeared in roadways in large measure would have appeared without any traffic. If they had been built and left without traffic we would have suffered much the same effects to a considerable extent.

Mr. CANNON. Judging from the work I have seen along the highways, you are overcoming that difficulty and adopting methods which prevent this injury.

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes; we are devoting a great deal of attention to preparing the subgrades so they will be stable under all conditions of moisture and temperature changes, to the extent practicable within the allowable cost.

It is one of the continuing studies we are making to increase the durability of road surfaces, which I regard as one of the most important things we are doing.

We are continuing research studies along other lines. One of the major problems is to translate into active practice in the field the result of new discoveries or new developments as they take place and to bring them to à practical utility point.

STUDIES IN COOPERATION WITH STATES

As a matter of policy, we are encouraging the States to send their laboratory men or engineers into the laboratory of the Bureau of Public Roads, to study the results obtained and to take those results back to use in the States. I am very happy at the interest the States are taking in employing men with the proper training to make studies of the soils before the pavements are designed and built.

We have a number of States that are making analyses of these soils in the roadbeds and applying the proper methods of treatment before building the surface on them, of whatever type it may be.

Mr. CANNON. In that way you can forestall the necessity for ordinary repairs?

Mr. MACDONALD. That is right. We are working on a rather extensive experiment with the States. In Missouri, for instance, we

are working with the highway department on experimental stabilization of soils.

Mr. CANNON. That is in the bed, not the surface.

Mr. MACDONALD. That is in the bed itself, the idea being to utilize the base of stabilized soil as a supporting medium for a thin wearing surface.

Mr. THURSTON. And as the pavement settles, instead of pumping in cement, you pump in dirt or mud.

Mr. MACDONALD. That is the adopted practice for holding rigid pavements to alinement and grade.

ROADSIDE PLANTING AND IMPROVEMENT

Mr. THURSTON. Through the press and through communications I have noticed some rather sharp comment about the gradually increasing plan of landscaping or beautifying the land adjacent to the highway. Some citizens complain and say that we should have hardsurfaced roads to all sections of the country, and that we spend too much money beautifying the main highway.

Is there any change of policy in that respect?

Mr. MACDONALD. There has been no change of policy in the past 3 years. Beginning with the first Public Works appropriation, which was made for the purpose of increasing employment, we adopted the policy of using one-half of 1 percent of the fund for the proper grading and planting of roadside. In the 1935 Public Works this was increased to 1 percent. That is about the limit of money that has gone in on that work. There has been no extreme or undesirable expenditure made for that purpose.

MR. THURSTON. You are spending about 1 percent of the total amount for landscaping and beautifying the roadsides? MR. MACDONALD. Yes.

ROAD MILEAGE COMPLETED

Mr. CANNON. Taken as a whole, you have had probably the greatest activity in your Department this year than at any time in its history?

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. That is due to the use of emergency funds, in connection with your drought activities, as well as your regular appropriation?

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. How does your mileage compare to that of previous years?

Mr. MACDONALD. Our activity was slightly greater in the fiscal year 1934; but as compared with previous years, this shows a greater mileage than we have had in any previous year. We have had

18,594 miles brought to completion in this last fiscal year. Mr. CANNON. That includes both primary and secondary roads? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir; it includes all types, in both primary and secondary systems.

I have prepared a brief statement, Mr. Chairman, setting forth the activities under the various funds which we have used during the year. This is in concise form, by States.

Mr. CANNON. We shall be glad to have that in the record.

(The statement referred to is as follows:)

FEDERAL-AID IMPROVEMENTS

Federal-aid highway work during the fiscal year 1935 was continued at an accelerated rate, utilizing balances remaining from the $400,000,000 Public Works highway funds provided by the National Industrial Recovery Act of June 16, 1933, and under a new program made possible by the $200,000,000 additional Public Works highway funds made available by the Hayden-Cartwright Act of June 18, 1934.

During the fiscal year 1935, 18,594.7 miles of highway improvements, constructed in cooperation with the State highway departments, were brought to completion. The following table shows the mileage of projects completed in each State on secondary or feeder roads, on the Federal-aid highway system outside of municipalities, and on extensions of the Federal-aid highway system into and through municipalities: