102 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tended to be a good one. But towards a country of the magnitude, extent, 

 and ever-increasing area of ours, spreading over such diverse geological 

 strata and bounds, and claiming such different soils and subject to such 

 distinctions of atmospheric conditions, some skill in the geographical dis- 

 tribution of plants should be in the possession and at the service of the 

 person employed in introducing new or supposed to be new varieties of 

 seeds and roots. Correspondence with scientific or industrial societies in 

 distant States with the Patent Office might perhaps obviate many of the 

 otherwise unavoidable difficulties now lying in the way, and save the intro- 

 duction of species of plants liable to become the most worthless of weeds 

 to the farming interests. It is evident that some better system should ob- 

 tain somewhere, to render a good design the mo§t available ; or, if this is 

 impossible, it would be far better to abolish this particular function of the 

 office, perhaps, than to continue so much waste of time and means, and to 

 so little purpose. We hold it to be the duty of a Society like ours to take 

 the matter into serious consideration, and, if possible, to help in devising a 

 better and more profitable method of rendering available, to its greatest 

 extent, anything that can be of service from abroad, or from distant parts 

 of our oivn country, to our agricultural interests, in its various departments 

 of skill and labor. 



At several times I have called the attention of the Essex Institute, in its 

 meetings, to this subject of the Patent Office method of gratuitous distri- 

 bution of seeds, and have made it the topic of extended remarks. This 

 society, located in Salem, has its horticultural department, and has been 

 favored with envoys of seeds through the medium of members of Congress. 

 With the single exception of a small scarlet radish, esteemed by some one 

 who received from the Institute a portion of seed, the lots were valueless. 

 On one occasion considerable parcels of well known and quite common 

 flower seeds, put up in London and in the original packets apparently, were 

 sent for distribution. Wheat of some well known variety, in little packets, 

 was among other agricultural seeds, and bestowed on a section of our State 

 where wheat as a crop is almost unknown. Mignonette seeds in consider- 

 able bulk for the purpose of sowing for the use of bees ; melilot or sweet 

 clover, which, rejected from gardens and fields in Essex County, grows 

 almost spontaneously by our roadsides and frequently on rubbish heaps as 

 a noxious weed ; and similar articles, of which it has been difficult to find 

 recipients. 



When we consider for a moment the unusual facilities enjoyed by our 

 New England cities, especially those of Massachusetts, for the early in- 

 troduction of every valuable seed, whether of field or of garden culture, 

 the zeal and enterprise manifested towards our gardens and fields provokes 

 a smile at the ignorance of friends of agriculture, in the want of a con- 

 siderate regard for our needs or possible necessities in this line of indi- 

 vidual or social industry. Thus the coarsest and meanest sorts are sup- 

 plied us to supplant those well known and long tried ; and a little better 

 acquaintance with the botany of regions abroad, or with their agricultural 

 resources, would prevent the trial of the Japan pea as an article of fodder — 



