118 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



has brought in something over 34,000 plant varieties and species 

 from every quarter of the globe, and has sent out the progeny from 

 these introductions by the hundreds of thousands to experiment sta- 

 tions and private experimenters and plant breeders throughout the 

 entire United States and its tropical possessions. It has kept a his- 

 torical record of all these introductions and distributions and accu- 

 mulated a most extensive collection of data bearing on new economic 

 plants. 



This is the first systematic attempt by any government to supply 

 its bona fide plant experimenters on an extensive scale with the mate- 

 rial out of which new plant industries can be built. 



The department has originated the profession of agricultural 

 exploration and has sent out as agricultural explorers 25 trained 

 men whose search has taken them through many of the cultivated 

 regions of the world and has already been the means of bringing to 

 the notice of the American farmer many of the farm customs and 

 practices of the centuries-old farm civilizations of other countries. 



AIDING RICE FARMERS, 



One of the earliest explorations undertaken in this field was for 

 the purpose of aiding the rice growers of the Southern States. Dur- 

 ing the year 1898 and again in 1901 an explorer was sent to Japan, 

 China, and India for the purpose of securing short-kernel types of 

 rice better adapted to the conditions of southern Louisiana and Texas 

 and more suited to the needs of the market, especiall}^ as regards 

 milling qualities. 



The great growth of the rice industry is a matter of history. Lands 

 which 15 years ago were selling at the nominal price of two or three 

 dollars per acre have come to have values of $30 to $50 an acre. The 

 total output of rice in this time has increased from 96,886,400 pounds 

 in 1896 to 637,055,656 pounds in 1911. Not all of this advance has 

 been due to the department's introduction work, but the industry 

 received an impetus at that time that has gone far toward making it 

 what it represents to-day. 



GRAINS AND OTHER CROPS FOR SEMIARID LANDS. 



About the time an interest in rice was being developed another 

 explorer was sent to Russia for the purpose of securing help in the 

 matter of grains adapted to our northwestern semiarid regions. A 

 large extent of territory in this section was yielding no valuable crop 

 returns. As a result of this first exploration work in 1898, followed 

 by a second trip in 1900, large quantities of drought-resistant durum 

 wheat and other varieties of wheats, oats, and special cereals were 

 brought in. The results of this work are found in the rapid extension 



