63 
several other vegetables. The figures for tomatoes for 1941 are 
2,029 pounds. In 1940 more than a ton of spinach and chard 
was raised; the average per year for the past three years was 
nearly three-quarters of a ton. 
Bureau of Public Information 
‘he Garden continues to function as a source of free public 
As 
— 
information on all aspects of plant life and gardening. 
previously recorded, this service tends to increase each year, in 
the number and variety of requests received and in the geographic 
extent of those seeking information. 
RESEARCH 
“The American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia,” 
was founded in 1743 by one of the most practical of America’s 
early philosophers—Benjamin Franklin. — Its full title states that 
it was founded “for Promoting Useful Knowledge.”’ There is 
very little, if any, knowledge that is not useful in one way or 
another. The human race is not likely to ever have more 
knowledge than is needed, and it is doubtful if mankind ever 
engaged in any occupation more important than promoting usefu 
— 
knowledge. 
It is doubtful, also, if any subdivision of learning contains a 
body of information more useful and essential to mankind than 
the knowledge of plant life. It is this science that underlies and 
rationalizes the most fundamental of all human occupations, 
namely, the art and practice of agriculture and horticulture. 
No one who faces this fact, and also the further fact that what 
we do not know about plant life greatly exceeds what we do know, 
can doubt the importance of increasing that knowledge. The 
accumulation of new knowledge proceeds after the manner of 
training in morals—''Line upon line, precept upon precept.” 
One cannot decide to make a great discovery, go at it, and accom- 
The great desideratum is that everyone who is interested 
plish it. 
or in any way gifted in such matters shall participate in the search 
for new truth—in the mass attack on ignorance. From time to 
time, at comparatively rare intervals, a ‘“‘great find” is reported. 
Sometimes it is stumbled onto; but it is never found, never even 
