18 DISTRIBUTION" OF SEEDS AND PLANTS. 



ornamentals, and put the office in touch with the best foreign agri- 

 cultural institutions in all the countries through which he traveled. 



Prof. N. E. Hansen has made four trips to Russia, Siberia, and 

 Turkestan, in the years 1897, 1006, 1008, and 1010, and obtained seed 

 of drought and cold resistant alfalfas, clovers, and vetches for intro- 

 duction into the Xorthwest. 



The late Dr. S. A. Knajjp visited Japan in 1898 and again in 1001 

 and procured quantities of the short-kerneled native rice, the culti- 

 vation of which has since grown into an industry in Louisiana. 



Mr. M. A. Carleton. former cerealist of this bureau, was sent to 

 Russia in 1898. and again in 1900, in search of a rust-resistant wheat 

 and brought back large quantities of the drought-resistant durum 

 and other varieties of wheats, oats, and other cereals. 



Dr. Ernst A. Bessey in 1002 and 1903 visited Turkestan, the Cau- 

 casus, and parts of Russia, where he secured large quantities of 

 Turkestan alfalfa and other seeds. 



Mr. "Walter T. Swingle was sent to Smyrna, Avhere he studied the 

 Smyrna fig industry in the year 1898, and in 1809 and 1900 to Xorth 

 Africa, where he discovered valuable forage plants and where he 

 procured (in Algeria) the large number of palms which started th^ 

 date plantations of the Southwest. 



Mr. T. H. Kearney, in the winter and spring of 1902-3 and again, 

 in 1904-5, explored portions of Xorth Africa and procured large 

 numbers of date j^alms and considerable quantities of valuable for- 

 age-crop seeds for introduction. 



Mr. O. F. Cook, who explored portions of ^Mexico and Central 

 America in 1904 and 1905 in search of a boll-weevil-resistant cotton, 

 procured for introduction seeds of native cottons and corns which, 

 formed the basis of his most valuable researches in cotton and corn 

 breeding. 



Mr. Frank N. Meyer spent the three years from 1905 to 1908 in 

 China and Manchuria exploring portions of the country never before 

 seen by white men and sending home many hundred selected species 

 or varieties of seeds and cuttings of rare plants and fruits. .Vmong' 

 the valuable things secured on this expedition Avere the Chinese seed- 

 less Tamopan persimmons, some remarkable hardy varieties of yel- 

 low roses, a new dry-land stock for stone fruits, and the Chinese tsaos,. 

 or jujubes. Mr. Meyer has just returned from an exploration of 

 nearly three years of the dry and cold regions of central Asia, includ- 

 ing the little-known Chinese Turkestan. He went in search of plants 

 for the cold dry Northwest and sent back, among the several hundied 

 living plants he collected, some remarkable dry-land poplars, new 

 and valuable shipping varieties of table graj^es. hardy wild apples 

 and apricots, a remarkable hardy olive, and a most valuable collection 



[Cir. lOOJ 



