39 



same description of seeds. The most that the Department can do in 

 sucli cases is to send to one or two persons only. It is often tbe case, 

 too, that applications are made for seeds — garden-seeds particularly — 

 with the remark that seeds sent the previous year turned out very satis- 

 factorily, and that another similar supply is wanted. The answer to 

 such requests must necessarily be, that those who neglect to save seed 

 are not entitled to a further supply. There is another class of requests 

 frequently made to which it is equally impracticable to respond. It is 

 that of iudividuals who conceive themselves favorably situated to be- 

 come distributors of seeds and reports, and ask that supplies may be 

 forwarded to them for that puri)ose. It is sufficient to say, that the 

 Department has ample means of knowing how its distributions can be 

 most appropriately and usefully made, and that a compliance with such 

 requests would only embarrass its operations and tend to defeat its 

 objects. 



The Department publishes monthly a report of the statistics and con- 

 dition of crops, &c., of which there are twenty-five thousand copies 

 printed. These are distributed to about four thousand agricultural and 

 other newspapers, and a large number to members of Congress, agricul- 

 tural societies, and iudividuals who apply for them, and to the corre- 

 spondents of the Department in the different counties. 



Congress has heretofore, and until the last session, authorized the pub- 

 lication of two hundred and fifty-five thousand copies of the Annual Re- 

 port of the Department, which were distributed as follows : Oue hun- 

 dred and eighty thousand to members of the House of Representatives, 

 fifty thousand to members of the Senate, and twenty-five thousand to 

 the Department of Agriculture. This would give to each member of 

 the Senate and House about six hundred copies, to be distributed among 

 their constituents ; and those given to the Department are distributed 

 to their agents in the different counties; to public libraries at home, and 

 in exchanges with foreign libraries ; to agricultural and horticultural 

 societies, and, to some extent, to iudividuals who apply directly for 

 them. Persons often request that their names be placed upon the list 

 of recipients. No such list is kept, and if it were it would very soon be 

 swelled to an extent beyond the ability of the Department to supply. 



When individuals apply for these reports, or, indeed, for seeds, it 

 must be understood that their requests are always responded to in ac- 

 cordance with the rules and principles which have here been stated. 



Oue other remark is proper : The Department is in the daily receipt by 

 mail of small sums of money to pay for seeds, publications, and postage, 

 which is always returned to the sender, inasmuch as the Department 

 has no lawful right to money for any purpose whatever. 



Agricultural education. — There is no intelligent man now who 

 hesitates to believe that early education is a great help to success in any 

 sphere of life. Whatever the occupation of a man may be, whether a 

 merchant, buying and selling the products of the world or sailing a ship 

 upon the ocean ; a farmer, dealing with the plow, the harrow, and the 

 reaper ; the professor of law, medicine, or divinity ; each in the practice 

 of his daily calling constantlj^ feels the advantages of early education, 

 and how it lessens the burden of his daily work. It is, therefore, the 

 first dictate of common sense that the plan of education should be 

 graded, not only by the capacity of the student, but in view of the busi- 

 ness which he anticipates will occupy bis future life. 



It is only within a few years that the necessity to educate the farmer 

 did at all attract public attention. It was erroneously almost conceded 



