During the last fiscal year the cost of seeds purchased was $66,548.61.
The remainder of an appropriation of $135,000 was expended in putting
them up and distributing them. It surely never could have entered the
minds of those who first sanctioned appropriations of public money for
the purchase of new and improved varieties of seeds for gratuitous
distribution that from this would grow large appropriations for the
purchase and distribution by members of Congress of ordinary seeds,
bulbs, and cuttings which are common in all the States and Territories
and everywhere easily obtainable at low prices.

In each State and Territory an agricultural experiment station has been
established. These stations, by their very character and name, are the
proper agencies to experiment with and test new varieties of seeds; and
yet this indiscriminate and wasteful distribution by legislation and
legislators continues, answering no purpose unless it be to remind
constituents that their representatives are willing to remember them
with gratuities at public cost.

Under the sanction of existing legislation there was sent out from the
Agricultural Department during the last fiscal year enough of cabbage
seed to plant 19,200 acres of land, a sufficient quantity of beans to
plant 4,000 acres, beet seed enough to plant 2,500 acres, sweet corn
enough to plant 7,800 acres, sufficient cucumber seed to cover 2,025
acres with vines, and enough muskmelon and watermelon seeds to plant
2,675 acres. The total quantity of flower and vegetable seeds thus
distributed was contained in more than 9,000,000 packages, and they were
sufficient if planted to cover 89,596 acres of land.

In view of these facts this enormous expenditure without legitimate
returns of benefit ought to be abolished. Anticipating a consummation so