1877.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
251 
Nobbe gives a summary of the results of tests of 
the sprouting power of some 3,700 samples of 
seeds sold in the European markets. These in¬ 
cluded 383 varieties of seeds of field and meadow 
plants, garden vegetables, flowers, shrubs, and 
trees. In a good many cases nearly all of the seeds 
proved capable of sprouting, in not a few none of 
them sprouted. The germinating power is esti¬ 
mated by percentages. Where, on the average, 50 
seeds out of every 100 prove capable of germinat¬ 
ing, this percentage is 50; where all sprout it is 
100; where all are dead it is 0. Of 79 samples of 
Timothy seed, ( Phleum pratense), the best yielded 99 
per cent of sound seeds, the poorest 15 per cent, 
while the average was 83 per cent. Of 19 specimens 
of Orchard grass, ( Dactylis glomerata), the best con¬ 
tained 61, the poorest 0, and the average 32 per 
cent of live seeds. In 365 specimens of Red clover, 
(Trifolium pratense ), the percentages of live seeds 
varied from 7 to 99, the average being 83. Wheat 
ran from 79 to 100, averaging 95, onions from 0 to 
90, averaging 50, and so on. 
In a reference to this subject in the annual report 
of our Experiment Station, for 1876, occurs the fol¬ 
lowing : 
“ The utility of such work is quite evident. By means 
of the fertilizer control system now in operation, every 
farmer in the State can assure himself of the genuineness 
and value of the fertilizers he employs. To secure the 
best returns for the capital he invests, it is of equal im¬ 
portance to him that the seed sown should he pure, and 
capable of germination. Otherwise a part of the plant- 
food supplied to his crop will be wasted, or go to the 
support of useless or noxious weeds unwittingly sown 
with the seed which was bought as pure.” 
So far as I am aware, nothing like an extended 
examination of the seed market in this country 
has ever been made. Work of this kind has been 
commenced in pur laboratory, by Messrs. Jenkins 
and Wamecke, who have studied the methods with 
Dr. Nobbe, at Tharand. Between fifty and sixty 
samples of the more common kinds of seeds have 
been examined thus far. I am very glad to be able 
to state that, so far as we can judge from these 
specimens, which have come from various parts of 
the country, the seeds sold in our markets must be 
far better than is the case in Europe. We have 
found but one extremely bad specimen among the 
number that have been examined. Most of them 
have turned out to be of excellent quality. 
W. O. Atwateb, 
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. 
Ogden Farm Papers—No. 89. 
BT GEORGS E. WAKING, JR. 
A writer in the “ Atlantic Monthly ” for June, 
makes a very good suggestion in connection with 
the Farm Village question. It is that when a 
wealthy citizen, retiring from trade, feels the agri¬ 
cultural emotion growing hot in his breast, he 
should not go into the country, buy “all the land 
that joins him,” and spend his substance (with a de¬ 
lusion that he is making money) in getting out 
rocks, and building fortification stone walls, and a 
wooden chateau—with a trotting stable and bowl¬ 
ing alley—and generally spreading himself, with 
the idea that he is “founding a family,” and “ en¬ 
couraging agriculture.” The only prominent influ¬ 
ence that this sort of man has exerted over agricul¬ 
ture, has been to discourage it. With more similar 
cases in mind than I have fingers and toes, I do not 
hesitate to venture the opinion, that in no 6ingle 
instance in this whole country, has anything but 
failure resulted from this sort of expenditure. Some 
of the finest farms at the East, really fine farms too, 
well supplied with luxurious houses, graperies, 
gardener’s cottages, gravel walks, and a long list 
of improvements, could be bought to-day for less 
than the cost of the stone walls with which they are 
fenced. I know of half a dozen instances where 
this process is going on now, and where the rosiest 
hopes, and the most glowing enthusiasm, are con¬ 
vincing the proprietors, at least,that they have found 
the philosopher’s stone, and that where so many of 
their predecessors have ignominiously failed, they, 
with the aid of some undefined charm, are sure of 
success. These are, all of them, instances where 
any experienced farmer must see at once, that noth¬ 
ing but failure is possible as a final result. Every 
one of these men is sure to impoverish his estate, at 
its final settlement, by a very large proportion of 
his agricultural expenditure. One of the worst 
things about it is, that these eases afford the most 
brilliant examples for description in farmers’ news¬ 
papers, whose editors are glad to have picturesque 
novelties to set before their readers. The conse¬ 
quence is, that a knowledge of these expenditures 
gets spread beyond its neighborhood. Farmers 
who live in daily observation of the “ improve¬ 
ment,” see its processes, understand its cost, and 
foresee the final result. It is the public beyond 
this limit which, getting only the published report, 
may be more or less misled, and fail to appreciate 
the utter wastefulness of the outlay. The result of 
this sort of thing is, I believe, always the same. 
Families are not founded in this country in any 
such way. In spite of the popular notion, money 
that is put into the land in this way, does run away 
with wonderful rapidity, often as fast as the sheriff 
can carry it. The only class of men who retire to 
the country in these later days, and 6pend their 
fortunes in encouraging agriculture, by improving 
their land at a cost ten (10) times greater than its 
average production for the next 20 years will pay 
interest upon, are those who have not the faculty 
of gaining knowledge by observation. The more 
costly school must, I suppose, always be kept open, 
but happily its agricultural pupils are growing 
fewer. The writer above referred to, says : 
“Then there is another set of rich men, fewer in 
number, who, led by some vain and half romantic 
impulse—they would despise if it came up in busi¬ 
ness affairs—try to form great estates further away 
from the cities. They surround their mansions 
with a park-like solitude, and spend uneasy hours 
trying to enjoy their dignity where 
“ 1 Solitude hems round one burning spot of life,’ 
“ and for such natures the trees offer only a barren 
sort of homage; these men need other men for 
admirers.” 
He then proposes that these city people should 
join interests with the farmers. That without both¬ 
ering themselves with villas, they should interest 
themselves with villages, selling or leasing to those 
who will make useful neighbors, and encouraging 
and aiding the community in every practicable way. 
They would then help to break up the old lonely 
habit of farm life. They, and the others who might 
center about them from the town, would find the 
association with their country neighbors attractive, 
and their country neighbors would gain still more 
by the accession of a few people from the business 
centers. There is much more practical good sense 
in this suggestion than may be apparent at first. 
The question of the Agricultural Department 
of the Government, naturally comes up with the in¬ 
auguration of each new administration, and gets 
much valuable ventilation from the efforts made by 
aspirants for office, to secure the salary attaching 
to its management. It seems to be accepted as a 
self-evident proposition, that the great agricultural 
interest of the country demands recognition and 
encouragement at Washington. I was myself for 
many years a firm believer in the idea that the most 
important monied interest of the country should 
claim, as a matter of right, to be represented in the 
cabinet, the dignity of American agriculture seemed 
to require this. I have long since been of the opin¬ 
ion that the dignity of American agriculture stands 
in no need of such a decoration. What it most 
needs is, to be let alone, to be left to the legitimate 
action of the laws of supply and demand. As a 
taxpayer, it especially calls for a saving on the part 
of the Government, of the present foolish expendi¬ 
ture made to keep up this useless Department. 
The very important dairy interests of the country 
would certainly be greatly aided by an elucidation 
of the causes of abortion in cows. These causes it 
is surely within the power of science to discover, 
and the necessary investigation would cost much 
time and money. The wi4e spread importance of 
the subject, makes it proper that the General Gov¬ 
ernment, and not a single State, should undertake 
the investigation. It is 6aid that Pasteur’6 scien¬ 
tific discoveries, concerning the microscopic be¬ 
ings or animalculse affecting the growth of the 
grape, and the ripening of wine, have saved to 
France more than the amount of the German in¬ 
demnity. An equally profitable field is open to 
science in this country. The grasshopper question 
alone is of vast consequences, but no one supposes 
that the Agricultural Department, as now managed, 
is at all able to cope with such serious work. 
It has always been, even when managed at its 
best, a waster of money. Even its monthly pub¬ 
lication of crop statistics has been suspended. 
These were of a certain value, but aside from this, 
it has devoted itself chiefly to giving away seeds, 
books—many of us have our shelves loaded with 
public reports, which we never read, and have 
thrust upon us 6eeds which we never use. This 
distribution of seeds and intelligence, may very 
properly be left to those whose commercial busi¬ 
ness it is, and it may be accepted as a universal 
truth, that both seeds and books, when bought and 
paid for, will be on the whole much better used, 
than those which are got for nothing. Of course, 
a certain amount of good is done by the circula¬ 
tion of Department Reports, and by the broadcast 
shedding of seeds of new and useful plants, but 
the amount that all this costs, as compared with 
the result, is simply stupendous. During the past 
14 years the Agricultural Department has cost the 
country about five million dollars, besides large in¬ 
cidental outlays, including transportation through 
the mails of about three million copies of “Re 
ports.” The salaries and contingent expenses 
alone have amounted to over a million dollars; the 
seed distribution to over six hundred thousand 
dollars; and the experimental garden over one 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Directly or in¬ 
directly, this burden is borne very largely by our 
own class, and I think that any added dignity that 
has come to us from the fine building and beautiful 
grounds at Washington has been paid for in full. 
I am not disposed to agree with those who clamor 
for the total abolition of the Department, nor is it 
perhaps advisable to make any sudden change in 
connection with its systems, but the present Com¬ 
missioner, after a trial of eight years, has, I think, 
failed to convince those who have watched his 
course, that he is in any important respect fit for 
his position. A conscientious, scientific man, with 
the necessary capacity for administration, would in 
that time have convinced the people that they had 
no use for the stupid, heavy annual report that has 
been issued to them, and that so far as their money 
can be expended by the Government for their bene¬ 
fit, it must be used in ways which are not at all 
showy,” not even demonstrative. As suggested 
before, there are certain things which agriculture 
gravely needs, and which can be secured only by 
the judicious expenditure of a great deal of money 
and the labor and devotion of conscientious and 
capable men. With a proper Commissioner at the 
head of the Department, authorized to abolish the 
“Report,” the experimental garden, and every 
form of expenditure which is intended only to 
make the Department “ popular,” there might have 
been obtained an amount of knowledge,—of a 
character which could be obtained in no other way, 
—which would have justified ten times the expen¬ 
diture that has been made. The distribution of 
seeds has done but trifling good, if it has done any 
good whatever, and the publication of the “Re¬ 
port” has been a gigantic mistake. 
Every item of information, which might have 
come into the possession of the Department, that 
was worth publishing at all, would have been 
greedily published by every agricultural and mis¬ 
cellaneous newspaper in America without charge. 
Whatever they would not publish, was presumably 
not worth publishing. 
If the farmers are to have any say at all as to the 
manner in which money is to be spent for their 
benefit, they should insist that the present “ grand¬ 
mother system ” shall be cut short off; that the 
Department shall be used for doing only such things 
as cannot be as well or better done in some other 
