JAPAN. 11 



seed. (2) That imported seed averaged better in color and was freer 

 from rust than much of the domestic. (3) That it was less lial)le to 

 be chalk}" and break under the milling- process. 



Now, were these conditions due to soil, climate, and selection, or to 

 more careful methods of harvesting- and storing^ If upon investiga- 

 tion it was decided that they resulted from the latter causes, then it 

 was believed that the machinery used could be modified or added to 

 till the rice grown upon the prairies of Louisiana and Texas would 

 possess every excellence of the foreign article. 



It should not be inferred that the rice lands of the United States are 

 limited to the coast prairies of Louisiana and Texas; but in that section 

 rice farming is carried on entirelv with machinerv, and the peculiar 

 difficulties are more pronounced. The alluvial lands of the Lower 

 Mississippi and of other rivers flowing into the (rulf of Mexico, as well 

 as many trat-ts in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, are adniirably 

 adapted to the cultivation of rice, and growers in these districts are 

 deeply interested in anything that relates to improvements in rice pro- 

 duction. Except where the density of population demands the use of 

 all land to meet the food supply, there will be found many unfilled 

 tracts in the river bottoms of nearly all of the Southern States which 

 can be profitably utilized for rice. Hence the best methods of pro- 

 ducing rice are of general interest. 



Other questions receiving the earnest attentioji of the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture relate to the vast tracts of land in the Gulf and 

 South Atlantic States which are rapidly being denuded of their pine 

 timber or on which the work of devastation has been completed. 

 Except for some small value they possess as grazing lands they have 

 been held in slight esteem from an agricultural standpoint. As a 

 whole these lands possess a soil almost destitute of humus, with a stifle 

 subsoil and a mechanical condition most unfavorable to the growth of 

 plants. If valuable plants could be found that readily adapt them- 

 selves to such conditions, then the pine-land problem would largely be 

 solved. The Department therefore decided to collect from Asiatic 

 countries the most valuable of such plants and to conduct a series of 

 experiments on the pine lands of the South to determine the best 

 methods of making them profitable to agriculture. 



JAPAN. 



Such marked benefits had been secured by the importation of Kiushu 

 rice that it w^as considered worth while to find other rices in the Flow- 

 ery Empire that would ripen at difl'erent periods, suited to the require- 

 ments of our harvest. Two days spent at the Royal Agricultural 

 College at Kamaba, Tokyo, and one day at Nishigahara Experiment 

 Station gave a comprehensive view of the valuable work along prac- 

 tical and scientific lines for the advancement of agriculture going on 



