The Holly chieftain., 1922-06-08


ter.
Congressman are coming more and more to send
their quotas Of seeds out, not to the voting lists
In their districts but to the school children, to
civic organizations, chambers Of commerce, banks.
and factories for workmen. and great deal to
miners.
With the department opposed to the congression-
al seed distribution, and with congress habitually
for 1t, Oliver F. Jones' originally from Cincinnati
who Is In active charge Of this work, has had an
unenviable Job as buffer between the department
and congress for about twenty years. He prob
ably knows all the members Of congress more In.
timately than any other man in Washington be-
cause he Is calling upon them In their Offices every
DAY IN the year. At present he is getting more
than 200 telephone calls day from them, dictates
about lOO letters day to them, and has 20 or 30
Of them calling on him in his office each day.
The seed distribution Is conducted under the
bureau of plant industry, of which Dr. William A.
Taylor is chief. r. A. Oakley and j. e. w. Tracy
purchase under contract all the seed that enters
into the congressional distribution and supervise
the, mechanical and physical work of filing the
packages and mailing them. Mr. Tracy is In
charge of the seed warehouse located at 800 Penn
sylvania avenue. which Is not at all modern well
ventilated or lighted. This building was erected
In 1884 and was the scene Of receptions, banquets
and inaugural balls for Andrew Jackson Martin
Van Buren, and Abraham Lincoln This Is not
government-owned building but has been rented
by the department and used as seed warehouse
for about ten years.
The filling of the orders Of congressman Is an
interesting part of the free-seed distribution. The
members supply their franks In sheets of ten.
They are cut up into single slips and counted into
bundles by expert counters from the bureau OF
engraving and printing. AS member sends in
an order blue slip Is made out calling upon the
seed warehouse to deliver that quantity and this
is accompanied by the corresponding number of
franks The seed packages are either sent to the
office of the member Of congress- II the franks are
not addressed or are mailed out directly from
the seed warehouse If they are addressed
These franks are coming In at the rate of
100000 or 100000 day. Each member is entitled
to 10000 packages of vegetable seeds and 1000
packages Of flower seeds. AS each of these pack
ages contains five small papers Of seeds 1t really
means that 100000 papers Of seeds sent out
by each member Of the senate and house.
The way In which these seeds are first put into
the small papers and sealed and then put one each
of five different kinds into larger package and
sealed. with the members frank pasted on each
package for direct mailing, is an Interesting part
Of the congressional distribution system. This
is done by contract, and this year new contract.
or is On the job. Frank Clarke of Waco Tex, who
has speeded up the work by devIsing new gluIng
machine.
The seed envelopes are filled by machinery,
which automatically weighs the contents of each
envelope Two girls work at one Of these ma
chimes, one filling and the other sealing the little
envelopes on revolving belt. Filling and sealing
$4,000 of these little envelopes Is considered good
days work. The girls get piecework over 10000
II dry.
Other girls sit at big tables pasting the congress
sional franks onto the contaner which are
printed the names Of the FIVE varieties Of vege.
tables or flowers that are to be placed within. A
belt carrier runs beside huge bins into which the
small packages Of seed have been dumped. AS
the rirls finish pastng the franks on the big en-
velopes they carried, one at time, along this
travelling belt roadway and In front Of Nn at
regular intervals girls. each Of whom Slips In
n small envelope and the container proceeds to
an inspector and then past another girl, who seals
up the package by machinery.