ess, which he never
regretted."

The free distribution of plants and seeds to Congressmen for their
favored constituents has made it an equally easy matter for the
Commissioner of Agriculture to obtain liberal appropriations for
his Department and the publication of enormous editions of his
Reports. Indeed, the Bureau of Agriculture has grown under these
fostering influences to one of immense magnitude, and its beautiful
building, erected in Lincoln's time, is one of the ornaments of
the city.

The first of the Agricultural Reports was issued by Edmund Burke,
while he was commissioner of Patents during the Polk Administration.
On the incoming of the Taylor Administration Mr. Burke was succeeded
by Thomas Ewbank, of New York City, and Congress made an appropriation
of three thousand five hundred dollars for the collection of
agricultural statistics. When Mr. Ewbank's report appeared the
Southern Congressmen were (to quote the words used by Senator
Jefferson Davis, in debate) amazed to find that it was preceded by
what he termed "an introduction by Horace Greeley, a philosopher
and philanthropist of the strong Abolition type." "The simple
fact," he continued, "that Mr. Greeley was employed to write the
introduction is sufficient to damn the work with me, and render it
worthless in my estimation." This view was held by many other
Southerners.

Notwithstanding this fierce denunciation, however, the public
appreciated just such work as had been undertaken, and so rapid
was the growth of interest in this direction that the Department
of Agriculture was fully organized in 1862. It has continued to
issue immense numbers of Reports, which are standing objects of
jest and complaint, but the fact still remains that they contain
splendid stores of valuable information.

Queen Victoria accredited as her Minister Plenipotentiary to
President Tyler the Right Honorable Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, an
accomplished diplomat, slender, and apparently in ill health. He
was afterward, for many years, the British Minister at Constantinople,
where he defeated the machinations of Russia, and held in cunning
hand the tangled thread of that delicate puzzle, the Eastern
Question. His private secretary while he was at Washington was
his nephew, Mr. Robert Bulwer (a son of the novelist), who has
since won renown as Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India, and as the author
--Owen Meredith.

The bitter political discussions at the Capitol during th