, 
34 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE, 
policy of the department; unless, indeed, some other and better course can a devised 
to moderate the demands of applicants, and confine to legitimate bounds a distribu- 
tion which has proved of so great value to the country, even in the imperfect manner 
in which it has heretofore been done. 
The views here expressed I have seen no reason to change in any 
essential particular. The necessity still exists, and must always exist, 
that this matter of distributing seeds shall be confined, equally with the 
duty of purchasing them, solely to this department; and I am pleased — 
_ to say that a large majority of the members of Congress, whose opinions 
have been sought, signify not only their assent but their earnest desire 
to be relieved from this onerous tax on their time, by the relegation of 
the labor to the proper party. 
They see, as the department does, and as all impartial observers must, 
that an important purpose for which this department was created, to 
wit, accurate experiments attending the introduction of new varieties of 
seeds, and intelligent reports on the same, leading to the elimination of 
the valuable from the valueless, can be reached in no other way than 
by having the department to be the sole distributor of the seeds which 
are to be placed in the hands of agriculturists, and the single depository 
of all reports from the recipients of them—reports which are to be the 
basis of future distribution, and guides to the agriculturists in every 
portion of the country. Already there are organized in the department 
separate divisions charged with the work of gathering such reports from 
all parts of every State in the Union, eliminating from them all val- 
uable information—information shaped by inquiries pointedly direeted— 
and filing the same in convenient form for future reference. Unless we 
can get such reports, and have them convenient for reference, and thus . 
know the results flowing from our distribution, the distribution of seeds 
at all is of doubtful value, and might as well be abandoned. 
Only by obeying the organic law, which requires the Commissioner of — 
Agriculture to distribute to agriculturists the seeds which invite them, 
can we hope to obtain these reports with any degree of certainty. This 
law is mandatory and must be obeyed until Congress shall see fit to 
amend the same, and thus permit or prescribe some other method of 
distribution. 
Of the thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of seeds that have 
passed through the hands of members of Congress, it is safe to say that 
not a dozen reports haye ever been made that have been available to 
the department as data on which to determine the intrinsic value of the 
seeds which have been drawn from its supply, or of the causes leading 
to failure or to success, as the case may have been, in the various local- 
ities where they were tried. 
-This one fact furnishes all the argument necessary to give emphasis 
to the importance ofa strict adherence to the law, which enjoins that the 
distribution be made by the Commissioner of Agriculture and only to agri- 
culturists. 
The question of the value tothe farmers of the country, and relatively 
