44 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
modern methods, which, when the time of depression in 
business comes—and it will come—will carry us safely 
through without a jar. 
Isn’t it a Glorious Feeling!! 
Ann Uplifter. 
THE FREE SEED DISTRIBUTION 
Editorial Philadelphia Public Ledger Jan. 26/7i, 1921 
Yesterday’s headlines tried to stir the sluggish flow of public 
interest into a swirl over the passage by the Senate of the pack¬ 
er regulation measure, and the discussion of armaments in the 
House, and the peace conference assembly in Paris, and a dozen 
other more or less important domestic and international mat¬ 
ters. But the all-important and burning question for the average 
plug citizen of this land was the passage by the House on Mon¬ 
day, by a vote of 83 to 72, of the amendment to the agricultural 
appropriation measure providing $300,000 for free seeds to be 
distributed by members of Congress to their constituents. 
This palpitating news item was not heralded by black head¬ 
lines nor was it played across or up and down the printed page, 
but it cuts more ice in the political destiny of this country' than 
the League of Nations and the tariff and the armament question 
all lumped into one. 
Well does he congressman know. His finger is upon the pulse- 
beat of his constituency, his ear is close to the ground and he 
shades his eyes with his hand while he peers at the portents in 
the political sky. If his seed shipments went out on time, all is 
well, if they did not, he had better take to the cyclone cellar 
before the storm breaks. A mail sack full of free seeds looms 
larger before the vision of the average rural community of 
small-town gaze than the stately walls of a postoffice building 
bulking two stories high and a hundred and fifty feet wide on 
the town’s principal corner. 
It is a strange but true commentary upon human nature, the 
overpowering effect of congressional seed distribution upon the 
average citizen. It is the one tangible beneficence from a pater¬ 
nal government to its people. It is the average citizen’s one lone 
d,i-g Into the United States treasury. It is a gift into his hand. 
And he takes a dollar’s worth of garden seeds and buys five dol¬ 
lars’ worth of agricultural implements and hires a man to plow 
his back lot and he plants these seeds and blesses his congres- 
man and prays for warm sunshine and recurrent rains. That he 
only reaps a peck of vegetables from all his expenditure and 
effort is not the point. The main point is, he has been recognized 
by his sovereign government. He had enough “drag” with his 
congressman to be subsidized by a special shipment of free 
seeds. 
The curtailment of the packers and the dismemberment of 
Turkey, these are important—to the packers and to Turkey; 
but that package of seeds in his good right hand and the talk up 
and down the main street about his Christmas gift in the early 
springtime from the halls of Congress are important to the free¬ 
born American citizen. 
To a city man the suburban train service and the standing of 
his baseball team in the pennant race take precedence over all 
other world history in its making. Far from the great centers 
of population, the weather and politics are the subjects that 
bear the brunt of discussion; and the fairness of the one and 
the foulness of the other are decided mainly upon the prompti¬ 
tude and volume of the congressional distribution of free seeds. 
Senator Cicero toils in committee and triumphs in debate upon 
legislative affairs of vital importance; but Congressman Jones 
watches closely to see that his secretary fills the old mail sack 
with free seeds and sends it on its way. Let Senator Cicero trem¬ 
ble, for Congressman Jones, with his admiring free-seed con¬ 
stituency behind him, is foreordained to usurp his proud place. 
Never doubt it. The most important news items of last Mon¬ 
day was that four-line paragraph that told of the passage of the 
$300,000 free-seed-distribution amendment to the agricultural 
appropriation bill. Well does the congressman know. 
FIVE-LEAVED PINES IN DELAWARE 
Information has just come to hand from Mr. Wesley 
Webb, Secretary of the Delaware State Board of Agricul¬ 
ture, stating that their quarantine on the shipment of 
five-leaved Pines and Ribes into the State has been mod¬ 
ified. The regulations for Delaware, which are now 
changed, were listed under paragraph 21 on page 240 of 
the October issue. Only five-leaved white Pines and 
black Currants are now prohibited entrance into Dela¬ 
ware from the New England States, New York, New Jer¬ 
sey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Min¬ 
nesota. The former State regulations prohibited white 
Pines and all Ribes from entry into Delaware from the 
above mentioned States. 
One can’t help wondering whether the man who 
would reform the world has succeeded in making one 
man perfect .—Louisville Post. 
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 
From the Office of the Permanent Secretary 1701 
Massachusetts Avenue, Washington . D. C. 
Crop Protection Institute Organized 
You can throw a bag of gold into the sea where no diver 
can find it. You can explode a bomb in Wall Street and 
do damage to the extent of millions of dollars. But there 
are many ways of losing values besides such spectacular 
means as these. America and the world are losing un¬ 
counted millions through the silent working of insects 
and fungi, insignificantly small yet exceedingly destruc¬ 
tive. 
The Bureau of Biological Survey has estimated that 
rats do damage in the United States yearly to the value 
of $200,000,000, but no one can compute the damage done 
annually to the plant growth in the United States through 
the ravages of various fungus and insect pests. The 
most conservative estimate placed the loss of wheat in 
this country in 1916, for instance, due to black stem rot 
alone at 180,000,000 bushels, while the loss from this 
cause in Canada was estimated at 100,000,000 bushels. 
Of all the many plant diseases there is not a single one 
that is so thoroughly understood at this time that the final 
word can be said about it. Nearly 400,000 kinds of in¬ 
sects are known. Fortunately not all are injurious but 
thousands of them are. Some of the worst ones are bad 
enough to give them all a had name. A single one may. 
ruin a whole crop of an important plant in any year. 
Much fine work has been done to eradicate or control 
these pests, yet how great is the need for more work! In 
no sense to trespass upon, or supplant work now being 
done, but with a view to coordinate it and supplementing 
it, and to bring all workers interested into a closer coop¬ 
eration, an important new organization, called the Crop 
Protection Institute, has just been formed. It has gener¬ 
ally been felt that a closer cooperation of scientists them¬ 
selves, and in turn more contact of producers and manu¬ 
facturers with the specialists in research, will produce 
more positive and more valuable results of the work of 
each class, and materially benefit the public. 
The Crop Protection Institute is the result of two con¬ 
ferences of a large number of scientists and manufactur¬ 
ers of fungicides and insecticides, arranged by the Na¬ 
tional Research Council, Washington, D. C., and it has 
been organized with the advice and assistance of the 
Council. The membership includes plant pathologists, 
economic entomologists, parasitologists, bacteriologists, 
chemists, and other interested scientific workers, as well 
as manufacturers and distributors of supplies and appli- 
