\ > | 
~ 
} 
654 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
for the reception of seeds; to estimate the number of the same requi- 
site for each variety; to prepare copy for seed-pocket labels, com- 
prising the name of seed, and, when deemed necessary, directions — 
for planting and cultivation;* to put up seeds in quantities suitable 
for distribution; to prepare large numbers of packages of the various 
kinds to meet any exigency that may arise; to fill, as received from 
the Commissioner or chief clerk of the Department, the orders of 
Senators, Representatives, and Delegates in Congress; to address the 
required number of franks and postal cards; send seeds to about: 
4,200 State and county statistical agents of the Department, to agri- 
cultural colleges and experiment stations, agricultural societies, and 
to miscellaneous applicants throughout the entire country, and to 
such persons in foreign countries as desire to effect exchanges with 
this Department; to keep sets of books in which entries in detail are 
made of all seeds received and of all distributions (with the excep- 
tion of those to members of Congress); to make up at the end of 
each fiscal year an alphabetically arranged statement showing in 
full the quantities, species, and varieties of seeds received by the Di- 
vision during the year, as well as preparing a tabulated statement 
showing the distribution of seeds during the same period; and to do 
much other necessary work of such a character as not to be easily 
classed under any particular head, but none the less essential to the 
usefulness and efficiency of the Division. 
Seed growing having become an important industry of the United 
States it has become a necessity that seed cultivators should know 
something of the habitat of the seeds with which they experiment, 
for if seeds be grown in a latitude unsuited to them, failure will be 
the invariable result. We know the effort to acclimatize the olive, 
fig, and banana in the open air where the thermometer falls below 
zero has always resulted in the loss of the plants. Different locali- 
ties often seem best adapted to different varieties of the same family, 
as is apparent in the grasses. Timothy grass is grown largely in 
Illinois, Wisconsin, and New York; Red Clover in Michigan, Ohio, 
and Indiana; Lucerne or Alfalfa mainly in California, while Blue 
Grass and Kentucky are so closely associated that the mention of 
the one suggests the other. The problem of acclimating varieties 
must necessarily be one of slow growth, inasmuch as mere examina- 
tion of seeds can never take the place or afford the certainty of 
practical experiment. 
For this and many other reasons there is a pressing need for greater 
unity of action among practical scientific agriculturists throughout 
our country. Not only would time and labor be saved, but better 
results would be obtained with concert ‘of action. Science with 
practice will be sure to achieve results immeasurably greater than 
would either, unaided by the other. A correspondent residing in 
southern Texas, in a recent letter to the Department, says in regard 
to the value of Northern seeds for planting in the South: 
One thing I have learned, and that is, that the farther north we can procure our 
seed corn or other seeds the earlier the crop will mature. For instance, seed corn 
will mature thirty-eight days earlier from seed grown in Ohio than from seed of 
the same variety procured from Mexico. 
* A complaint has justly been made to this Department that no directions accom- 
panied the packages of seed of the Russian forage plants, whether the seeds should 
besown broadcast or drilled in and cultivated. An earnest though unsuccessful 
effort was made to procure the desired information in time for the spring distribu- 
tion. 
