GOVERNMENT WORK FOR THE FARMER. 37 



stance, I told the growers of tobacco in Kentucky that it might 

 be possible for us to produce suckerless plants. They laughed, 

 but they all said if you can give us any of the seed we want 

 some of it. Now it would seem impossible to produce a sucker- 

 less type of tobacco, but we hope to attain it. You know that 

 one variety of apple branches out in a different way from 

 another. If you are a cotton grower, you know that one 

 brand is entirely different from another. We have one kind 

 of cotton which branches out with great branches over the 

 ground, and we have another type of cotton which is almost 

 limbless. It will grow right up in a column like a cedar tree 

 and produce bolls on each side. These things in nature are 

 not uncommon. It is not such a marvel to produce a plant 

 which is substantially changed from its normal form by the 

 proper treatment, and that is exactly what we believe can be 

 done with respect to the tobacco plant. If any of the growers 

 have seen the experiments which the Department has been 

 carrying on at East Hartford this last season you will bear 

 me out in saying that we have several types there this year 

 which are practically suckerless. I believe, gentlemen, that it 

 is possible for the plant breeder, working with intelligence and 

 care, to produce a tobacco plant which you will not have to 

 sucker, as we express it ; which will save all that expense, 

 and which will be just as good. But I am spending too much 

 time on this branch of our work and must hurry on. 



I meant to mention another line of our work which has 

 been talked of a good deal, and that is in the production of a 

 new strain of orange. The newspapers have been telling you 

 people up in the North that you could grow oranges up here. 

 I even had letters from people in Canada asking for some 

 samples of this hardy orange-tree adapted to grow in a cold 

 climate. Now, unfortunately, all newspaper stories are not 

 true. I give them credit for trying to tell a thing in the right 

 way, but they occasionally stretch it a little. The fact is, in 

 this connection, that there is a little grain of truth which 

 afforded some foundation for the story which went out. The 

 Department two years ago was able to announce that it had 

 produced a hardy orange that could be grown further north 

 than any existing variety. We were able to distribute last 

 year to about five thousand farmers in Georgia. Alabama, 

 Mississippi, and in the region running through there to Texas 



