BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 355 



FOREIGN SEED AND PLANT INTRODUCTION. 



The work of bringing in from foreign countries new and valuable 

 plants, which is, as heretofore, under the immediate direction of 

 Mr. David Fairchild, Agricultural Explorer, lias been materially- 

 strengthened during the past year by the appointment to the statf of 

 Mr. P. II. Dorsett, Expert, who will have general charge of the 

 various plant-introduction gardens, and of Messrs. Peter Bisset, H. F. 

 Schultz, and Dr. AValter Van Fleet, Experts, who will have charge 

 of definite phases of the work. 



Agricultural explorations in central Asia. — ^ISIr. Frank N. 

 Meyer, Agricultural Explorer, who left this country in August, 1909, 

 to search for plants in the central Asian region, has been delayed by 

 local conditions in reaching that territor}', but he has secured many 

 valuable seeds and plants from the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Bok- 

 hara. Among the most promising of these are a wild almond, which 

 he suggests as a stock for stone fruits in our dry regions; the Afgha- 

 sian apple and a special variety of pear which seem promising for 

 trial in the Gulf States; the Erivan alfalfa, which is reported to be 

 longer lived even than the Turkestan as tried in the Caucasus; a 

 species of Medicago from an altitude of 4,000 feet, which seems to be 

 new and has already been made use of in the work of creating new 

 drought-resistant hybrid alfalfas for the Northwest; an olive from 

 the Crimea which has withstood a temperature of zero and which 

 fruits regularly ; a collection of Caucasian cherries ; the best Caucasian 

 hazelnuts; a remarkable collection of table grapes which are much 

 desired at the present time in California; the drought-resistant apple 

 {Mains pumila) which is used in dwarfing the apple in Europe; a 

 yellow-flowered peony which is something new in this class of flow- 

 ers; a collection of sweet-kerneled apricots; the sand-binding plants 

 which are used by the Trans-Caucasian Railroad; and a collection of 

 winter wheats from the oases of Samarkand, Old Bokhara, and Merv. 



Agricultural explor.\tions in Palestine. — The prolonged visit 

 to this country which was made by Mr. Aaron Aaronsohn, of Pales- 

 tine, during the formation of the Jewish Agricultural Experiment 

 Station at Haifa, made it possible for the Department to secure the 

 results of his long and valuable experience as an agriculturist in 

 Palestine in the form of an important bulletin on the plants of that 

 country which are likely to prove of value when introduced into 

 America. A new dry-land stock for dwarf early pears in high arid 

 situations has already been imported, as well as varieties of the chick- 

 pea, a leguminous field crop which INIr. Aaronsohn believes is adapted 

 to the dry-farming areas of the West ; and his account of a wild rela- 

 tive of the cultivated wheat was considered of such importance that 

 Mr. O. F. Cook, of this Bureau, was sent from Egypt, where he went 

 on another mission, to investigate the possibilities of its acclimatiza- 

 tion and use in this country. 



Work of the plant-introduction garden, Citico, Cal. — The 

 installation of an irrigation system and the erection of needed green- 

 houses have made it possible to propagate for distribution this year 

 nearly twice as many introduced plants as were propagated at the 

 Chico garden last year, and in addition a large amount of cooper- 

 ative work has been carried on with various offices of the Bureau. 



