The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-03-15
THURSDAY. MARCH lS, 1908.
AnnI.IsH mn FARCE.

Sowing seeds is a good business, when sown by the proper person and in the right soil. Evidently our Gov ernment thinks Congressmen are good sewers and that their constituents fur nish a good and receptive soil. For. more than forty years.-since 1862. in fact--the business of free distribution of seeds by Congressmen has been go- ing on, under the Congressional frank, of course. for they could not be expect ed to pay postage or express charges. correspondent of The Advertiser has the correct idea when he says that the Government has no business fur uishing free seeds. and the evils aris- ing from this practice are self-evident to any one who gives the matter any thought and attention. It is estimated that if the Department of Agriculture were required to pay postage on the seeds 1t sends out, at the same rates as other people. the revenue to the Postofice Department would be in- creased at least s30O.OOO, and the inci- dental expense of labor, printing, etc, in handling the seed business really make the cost, considering the postage as above indicated, at over three-quar- ters of a million dollars. The enorm- ous quantities of seeds sent through the mail by this free distribution are also very largely responsible for the deficit in-4he Postofiie Department"
 The truth of the matter is that this free seed business Is something of a humbug. It has outlived its useful ness, if it ever really had any. The original idea of the Government was to CTS throughout the country specimens of rare and valuable seeds, and the plan may have been good one, but 1t is so no longer. Now. any kind of seed, rare or common, good. bad or in different are gathered in by the Depart ment of Agriculture and turned over to the members of Congress to be sown among the people. The Congressman do not know what kind of stun they are sending out and the people who get the seeds care very little about them. In the years following the war between the States 1t was doubtless a boon to the country people to get the seeds without cost to themselves, but that Is past The farmers can get all the seeds they want. and Of their own se- lection, in any city, town or village at small cost. or can have them sent by mail to their homes.
 It is high time this useless waste of the public money was stopped. When J. Sterling Morton was Secretary of Agriculture under MT. Cleveland he made an effort to abolish the custom but the influence in favor of free seedE was too strong for him. Now there is largely another generation of Com gressmen and constituents. conditions have essentially changed and there should be no difficulty about looping off an expense which serves no useful purpose. The members should be glad to be rid of the trouble and worry of 1t. They will lose nothing by voting for it's abolition. for we do not be- lieve the voters care. or that they can be influenced one way or the other by cutting out the seed business. We hope Aiabama's Congressman will join with those who are trying to relieve the Government It is not only a de- feneeless burden on the treasury, but Is a wrong to the merchants and seeds men of the country. The Government of the United States has no right to set up and maintain an opposition agri- cultural furnishing store. Kill it.