186 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



sweet potatoes nor white potatoes can be raised profitably it will be 

 of definite Aalue as a supplement to the other starchy root crops. 



Chaiiote. — Quite a lively interest in the chayote as a southern win- 

 ter A'egetable has developed, and wherever fruits have been sent for 

 cookincjj tests they have brou<;ht forth high commendation. Trial ship- 

 ments of (he fruits have been sent to many of the larjjer hotels 

 tlirouirhout the Eastern States, and the inciuiries for these fruits have 

 justified an effort on the part of the department to stimulate in- 

 creased production so as to care for the demand for this vegetable. 

 From the chayotes grown at the Brooksville Plant Introduction 

 Field Station a sufficient quantit}^ of seed was grown to supply 

 enough for trial tests by 2,000 cooperators. Experiments have been 

 carried on with different fertilizers and different methods of propa- 

 gation and selection so as to learn whether it is possilde to segregate 

 and keep pure some of the more desirable types. 



Rumex. — Seeds of a very interesting vegetable known as Rumex 

 ahysslnicus were received from Angolia, Portuguese West Africa. 

 This is a luxuriant tropical Rumex. the leaves of which can be 

 used in a way similar to spinavh. Trial plantings at the Yarrow 

 Plant Introduction Field Station have proved very successful. The 

 plants grow in one season to a height of from 6 to 7 feet and all 

 during the hot summer months afford an abundant supply of succu- 

 lent green leaves. This plant appears to be especiall}' promising as 

 a hot-weather green-leaved vegetable for the Southern States, where 

 the summers are too hot for the cultivation of spinach. 



7 ICO starch-2)roducing plants. — There were growm during the past 

 season at the plant introduction field station at Brooksville, Fla., two 

 starch plants, namely, Canna edulis and Maranta anmdlnacea. The 

 roots of both of these plants yield very valuable starches. Plant 

 material of both has been distributed throughout southern Florida to 

 interested experimenters, and it would appear from trial plantings 

 that Canna edulis is likely to prove a very valuable crop for some of 

 the reclaimed Everglade lands. 



DRY-LAND AGRICULTURE. 



The cropping season of 1918 was characterized by extreme drought 

 in the southern Plains and in parts of the extreme northern Plains. 

 During the crop season of 1919 the southern and central Plains en- 

 joyed heavy production, but the drought extended and became more 

 extreme in the northern Plains, resulting in complete crop failures 

 over extensive areas in parts of Montana, North Dakota, South 

 Dakota, and Wyoming. 



The soundness of the advice given farmers in the past by the 

 Bureau of Plant Industry has again been fully vindicated by 

 the experiences of this severe, extensive, and protracted drought, and, 

 moreover, it has been brought home to the farmers more effectively 

 than ever before. The self-seeking land boomers, exploiters, and 

 theorists, with their panaceas for all the agricultural ills of dry 

 farming, who were so numerous and so pernicious for about 20 

 years — from about 1895 to about 1915 — have almost entirely disap- 

 peared. At the present time there is practical unanimity among all 

 the investigators of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 the State experiment stations, and the agricultural department of the 



