The present Secretary of this department is Hon. James Wilson, of Iowa. He served several terms in Congress, was Regent of the State University of Iowa, and for six years prior to his present appointment was Director of the Iowa Experimental Station and professor of agriculture at the Iowa Agricultural College, Ames, Iowa.

The Department of Agriculture consists of twenty different divisions, each one of which is worthy of a complete chapter. The department has many buildings, but the main one stands within the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution, in a bower of blooming plants and clinging vines. Every kind of plant from the tropics to the Arctic Circle which can be made to grow in this climate can be found in this department.

Studies in ornamentation, best methods of grafting, pruning, budding, hybridizing, and treating diseases of plants, trees, and animals are thoroughly investigated at its experimental stations.

Vegetable and flower seeds, grass seeds, plants, trees, bulbs, and grape-vines are distributed in the department through the Senators, members, and delegates of Congress. By this means the best varieties of the vegetable kingdom are carried throughout the United States. During the coming year the country will be more carefully districted, and only such seeds and plants as have been thoroughly acclimated will be sent to the several districts.

Members of Congress from cities exchange their quota of vegetable and crop seeds for flower seeds, thus leaving more of the former for members with a farming constituency.

The following statement shows the amounts of seeds, bulbs, plants, and trees, so far as the allotments have been made, for a recent fiscal year:

Each Senator, member, and delegate will receive—

Vegetable Seed12,000 packages, 5 papers each.
Novelties Vegetable Seed500 packages, 5 papers each.
Flower Seed500 packages, 5 papers each.
Tobacco Seed110 packages, 5 papers each to districts growing tobacco.
Cotton Seed70 packages, 1 peck each, to districts growing cotton.
Lawn Grass Seed30 packages.
Forage Crop SeedAllotment not yet made.
Sorghum SeedAllotment not yet made.
Sugar Beet SeedAllotment not yet made.
Bulbs10 boxes, 35 bulbs each; or 20 boxes, 17 bulbs each.
Grape-vines8 packages, 5 vines each.
Strawberry Plants10 packages, 15 plants each.
Trees20 packages, 5 trees each.

For seed distributed alone the government appropriates $270,000. Think of the beneficence of that! The rarest and best seeds that money can buy will be planted in every State and Territory of this country. Experts are continually sent abroad to find new cereals, fruits trees, animals, and flowers.

The department has at least one correspondent in every county of the United States through whom the statistics on acreage, quality of crops, and success of experiments are reported at stated times.