BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 421 



electrical treatment. Both indoor and field experiments will be 

 continued this year with improved apparatus. 



The electrical resistance method for measuring rapidly the mois- 

 ture content of grain, developed by this office, has been given an 

 extensive commercial test. About 400 cars of corn from all sections 

 of the corn belt Avere tested by this method, the measurements being 

 checked by direct moisture determinations. The results indicate 

 that the electrical method of measuring the moisture content of 

 ^rain will find a useful field in commercial grading. The method 

 IS now being put through a similar test with wheat. 



FOREIGN SEED AND PLANT INTRODUCTION. 



Under the general direction, as heretofore, of Mr. David Fair- 

 child, the work of plant introduction now employs a force of 68 

 men and women. 



Although the number of introduced plant species and varieties 

 has not increased materially, the foreign and domestic correspond- 

 ence of the office has increased during the past year nearly 60 per 

 cent. This increase in correspondence has come about through the 

 increased interest which is being taken in this country in the pre- 

 vious introductions and the wider appreciation in other countries 

 of the value of this kind of work, causing a demand for informa- 

 tion about American ])lants. The great traffic in plant exchanges, 

 which was predicted when the office was first established, has in fact 

 really begun and tons of plants and seeds of a purely experimental 

 character are being shipped here and there about the world to meet 

 the rapidly growing demand for new crops to test. The 14 years 

 of experience which this office has accumulated through its ex- 

 plorers and hundreds of thousands of tests has given it a somewhat 

 unique position as an international bureau of information concern- 

 ing the whereabouts of desirable plants. The possibilities of these 

 international exchanges of courtesies, which cost in themselves 

 almost nothing, but which may be of immense value when the plants 

 come into common use in the various countries, warrant their 

 continuance. 



A new departure relates to distribution of plants to experimenters, 

 and is calculated to assist them in giving to these trial plants the 

 careful attention which they require. All are familiar with the 

 difficulty of keeping track of their plants. Hitherto only a name or 

 a number has been used and the (lescrii)tive data have been kept in 

 a book or among the correspondence files. Hereafter a 50-word 

 synopsis of the uses and origin of the plant, printed on a celluloid 

 label, will be attached to it. 



Over 40,000 of those special rare foreign plants were sent out last 

 year, each lot accompanied by specific data as to its experimental 

 value. The coming year this number will be increased probably 50 

 per cent by reason of increased facilities for the rapid propagation 

 of the new introductions. 



Ar.RICULTURAL EXPLOR.\TION IN SlIlERTA AND RuSSIA. "When Mr. 



Frank N. Meyer had finished the exploration of the Tien Shan 

 region and had arrived at Omsk, he was asked by cable to collect for 

 special experimental use as much seed as possible of the yellow- 

 flowered Siberian alfalfa. He found it entirely out of the question 



