INVENTORY OF SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED BY 

 THE OFFICE OF FOREIGN SEED AND PLANT INTRO- 

 DUCTION DURING THE PERIOD FROM APRIL 1 TO 

 JUNE 30, 1916 (NO. 47; NOS. 42384 TO 48012). 



INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 



This inventory covers the spring months of the year preceding 

 our entry into the Great "War. During those months 40 countries 

 sent freely through their official representatives, or allowed to pass 

 freely, the plant material collected within their borders which this 

 inventory describes. In the light of recent events this fact takes on 

 a new significance. It shows the spirit of free exchange of mate- 

 rial of the greatest value which existed before the war, material 

 from which food crops of great importance could be developed. 

 Upon no single species of plant had any nation placed an embargo. 

 It was possible at any time through official requests to secure every 

 courtesy desired and, often without cost, all plant material asked 

 for. The policy, followed by this office for 10 years, of offering to 

 secure free of cost small quantities of plant material of American 

 species may have been in part responsible for the hearty assistance 

 rendered by these representatives of 40 foreign countries. Even the 

 Ameer of Afghanistan, who guarded jealously every avenue of com- 

 munication with the outside world, sent a shipment of plants as a 

 gift to this Government previous to the war. 



This inventory describes collections made by only one representa- 

 tive of the office, Mr. H. M. Curran, who as a collaborator collected, 

 in connection with other work upon which he was engaged in Colom- 

 bia, seeds of some rare and interesting oil palms and of tropical for- 

 est and other economic trees of that country. 



Of the material sent in by correspondents, the cerealists will be 

 interested in a collection of South African endemic Varieties of wheat 

 (Xos. 42391 to 42426) which Mr. I. B. Pole Evans reports have been 

 cultivated for many years on irrigated lands; and in the Papago 

 sweet corn of Arizona (No. 42042), which may prove valuable for 

 silage in Kansas and Nebraska. 



Four good tropical bonavisl beans (Xos. -12:>77 to 42580) from 

 British Guiana, one of which lasts for 1 wo years, may interest Florida 

 truck growers; and a relative of the tulo from the Himalayas, Aralia 

 cachemirica (No. 42G07), which is hardy at the Arnold Arboretum, 



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