Norwich bulletin., 1913-02-15


 I Of1ce-which then included the agri- cultural bureau,-to enlarge it's work along these lines. From that day on l the agricultural branch at Washing ton has been working along those lines. of procuring new and valuable" seeds.
 If there is a grain or vegetable or q fruit or any other plant growing any where in the world for the use of
 human beings. the department gets seeds or cuttings scions. and tests them. out to see whether they are worth adding to our list. It's agents visit every land on the globe, from frozen Siberia to steaming equatorial India, and rake it with fine-toothed combs for new plants. Most of their finds don't pan out worth much for us, but quite a few are valuable; more than enough to pay for the work and its cost. It Is said that the yield of a single new variety of wheat. last year, raised on lands which will not produce any other sort. was sufficient in value to pay ten times over all tha : the department has ever spent in this work.
 Right along this line the govern ment can and ought to help the farm ing community. The propagation of new vegetables or the hybridizing of old ones for the production of super for new strains is something that
 
 gardener One who engages in that occupation must expect and be willing to face ten failures to every success.
 That is what we who depend upon our crops for our living can't do.
 That is what the government, which does not depend upon it's sales for its income, can do for us.
 That is what the Department of Agriculture is doing Its agents all over the globe are constantly send ing to it rare and new plants or seeds. It is taking these new plants or seeds and testing them under our climate and in our soils. If it finds any of them which seem to show a reason able chance of proving valuable, it sends samples to farmers and garden CTS and orchardists. here and there, to try them out. Perhaps it is a varf ety of oats which ight do well in Texas but prove worthless in Mon tana: perhaps it is a peach which stands the frosts of the Caucasus and might, perhaps, prove hardy in Maine or Michigan: perhaps it is a seedless orange: perhaps it is durum wheat which shall establish a whole new in- dustry: perhaps it is a new alfalfa from Siberia which promises to stand the cold and droughts of our northern states where the common sort is apt to fail Whatever the new find is. if it shows any chance of proving val uable to any one corner of our coun- try, it is sent out to volunteer planters for test under varying conditions.
 Now, that is good work; a prom islng work; a needed work. It is one which the government is just fitted | to do and which private farmers are not. It is one which would never be 1 done at all. unless by some govern | mental agency.
 It bears no more relation to the 1 congressional distribution of every l day lettuce and radish seeds than a | piano does to a pile of cord-wood-
 Yet this useful and important work | in the interests of real farming is hampered and short-circuited by the | useless and silly farce of congression- al seed distribution in the interests of pieayune politics The law which allows the congressman to send out s3, ,364 555 packets of seed for which | the Secretary of Agriculture to send l only 1,150,000 packets for which there 1 is real demand and which may well prove to be of immense and everlast- ing value
 1t is simply another illustration of | he truth of the old saying: See with how little wisdom this world is governed"
 I don't know exactly what we are going to do about it. Some years ago one congressman, who fully appreci- ated the supreme stiffness of the whole thing, moved to amend the an nual bill by adding this to the seed 
 Provided that the Secretary of agriculture shall first distribute to each senator, representative and dele gate chickens hogs 6 cattle and i horses. all thorough -breds and di- 'ided half and half as to sex
 The whole house laughed: two members out of every three felt just IS the mover of the amendment did ,ut they voted the appropriation for he seeds just the same. and refused o send out the chickens and hogs. 1
 Yet there is no apparent reason vhy the government should send cabbage seeds to farmers to. feed chickens with, and not chickens to eat 1 he seeds. Nor why it should send vatermelon seeds to a farmer in Northern Maine who doesn't want hem and refuse him hogs which he locs want and could use.
 - I'll a--.rA RMER.