animous against the Department of Agriculture offering to the
prospective purchaser any information. Various reasons for their stand
were given by the protestants, but how flimsy and ridiculous they are
when analyzed. Congress for a number of years has been appropriating
money and authorizing certain work by the Department of Agriculture. It
is the people's money, and the people's Department, and the information
gathered by the experts in this Department ought to be the people's
information, and it ought to be possible for any citizen to write the
Department a letter about any proposition that he has received from any
of these various promoters, and have the advice of those who know most
about it.

I suppose the Department of Agriculture has entirely too many duties to
perform to undertake a work of this kind, but what an inconsistent
position it is for a Member of Congress, who has been voting for
appropriations to carry on this work, to appeal to the Secretary of
Agriculture to suppress such information in order that some exploiter
may get somebody's money under false representations. I think if it were
possible today to know the list of concerns and companies who
registered, directly or through agents, their opposition to this
proposed warning circular, you would have a correct index of the
concerns good to let alone. For no honest, reputable individual or
company need be afraid of the work or suggestions of that great
Department. I have the pleasure of knowing many of the officials in the
Bureau of Plant Industry, and never anywhere have I seen a body of men
so conscientiously engaged in the work of promoting legitimate
horticultural and agricultural knowledge. It is the very life of that
great Department, and its officers and employees above everyone else are
most interested in seeing the land produce the most and best that it can
be made to produce, and they are best qualified to pass upon these
matters.

Most of the questions in these various schemes are questions of soil and
horticulture. One letter in opposition to the Agricultural Department's
attitude, that was brought to my attention, stated that crops varied
under different conditions, and that no one was able to tell what a
certain soil would or would not produce throughout a period of years,
and intimated that the Department of Agriculture might mislead the
public; and yet the concern that sent it printed columns of figures
guaranteeing returns from pec