DISTRIBUTION OF SEEDS. 97 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEEDS BY THE UNITED 

 STATES PATENT OFFICE. 



By JOHW LEWIS RUSSELL, Professor of Botany. 



The introduction of new varieties of valuable agricultural seeds, or of 

 new kinds of fruits, is a subject demanding the most careful consideration 

 of those interested in the profitable cultivation of the earth. The subject ad- 

 dresses the attention of societies formed for the diffusion of knowledge in 

 agriculture. Agriculture, as an employment or as a profession, is wide and 

 extended in its bearings and relations to mankind. Primarily it is the 

 rudest of occupations, but, invested with the aids of enlightened research, 

 it becomes one of the most recondite. At the present, it is in a transition 

 state, having begun to emerge out of the routine of custom, and starting 

 upon that of experiment. By and by we may look for more satisfactory 

 results. We must wait the good time coming. Yet encouraged by de- 

 cided gains towards its advancement and progress, press upon the public 

 attention its claims to a higher state than it has yet reached. 



The earlier condition of man is savage, then nomadic or pastoral, then 

 barbarous or agricultural, then civilized or elegant and constructive. The 

 chase, the wild fruits and seeds, furnish his earliest food ; then his flocks, 

 and their milk and flesh and wool, his raiment and sustenance ; then the 

 planting of a few trees, the sowing of a few seeds, the enclosing of some 

 acres for protection from beast and bird around his rude dwelling, make 

 him the Agriculturist; and the barbarous state here exists, though it 

 tends rapidly towards the civilized. Lastly, he builds more commodious 

 dwellings, cares more for his cattle and herds, selects his kinds of grains, 

 with attention to their better qualities ; prunes, grafts, cultivates his trees : 

 watches every improvement in their fruits, propagates with assiduity the 

 purest and best sorts, learns how to multiply them to the best advantage, 

 surrounds his private and public edifices with ornamental and beautiful 

 forms of vegetation, and rises to the Horticulturist, and the most ingenious 

 and elegant of occupations pertaining to the cultivation of the earth is 

 his. To this higher end, he calls in to his aid the assistance that science 

 bestows, and natural history and chemistry and kindred subjects now come 

 to his aid and are requisite in his calling. 



The origin and rise of agriculture, as such, simply from the barbarous 

 condition of man, naturally tend, without great care, to leave man where 

 his sternest necessities find him, viz., in search of his food and in securing 

 its continuance. To elevate the farmer out of this liability, the establish- 

 ment of county, state and national agricultural societies is a most felicitous 

 idea and project. There is more need of such an arrangement here than 

 in the pursuit of horticulture, because more intelligence is needed at the 

 starting point to raise a choice fruit, than to raise a bushel of potatoes or 

 an acre of corn. Our Indian tribes were expert in agriculture to the extent 

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