Kearney: Louis Trabut 



155 



University of Algiers. His training 

 both in medicine and in botany led him 

 to discover the therapeutic value of 

 certain native plants, notably the Atlas 

 Cedar, a tree closely allied to the 

 famous Cedar of Lebanon. 



With his colleague, Dr. Battandier, 

 Trabut devoted many years to botan- 

 ical investigations which resulted in 

 the publication of the authoritative 

 Flora of Algeria, by Battandier and 

 Trabut. In the course of these re- 

 searches every part of the colony was 

 traversed, largely on foot, and as a 

 result Trabut acquired an intimacy 

 of knowledge of the wild and cultivated 

 plants which bore golden fruit when 

 his plant breeding activities began. 



Algeria, which faces France on the 

 southern shore of the Mediterranean, 

 was once a Roman colony and was in 

 a high state of development at the 

 beginning of the Christian era. North- 

 ern Africa was long the granary of the 

 Roman Empire and was renowned also 

 for its extensive vineyards and or- 

 chards. Traces of the advanced state 

 of agriculture at that epoch are still to 

 be seen in the numerous ruins of irriga- 

 tion works and of mills for extracting 

 olive oil. The Arab invasion swept 

 away this ancient culture and much of 

 the country was turned into a desert. 

 In this condition it remained until the 

 French occupation began, less than a 

 century ago. 



For more than a thousand years 

 agriculture and horticulture were car- 

 ried on almost exclusively by the Ber- 

 bers, relics of the indigenous population 

 who had sought refuge in remote moun- 

 tain districts; the Arabs, essentially a 

 nomadic and pastoral people, preferring 

 to inhabit the plains and lowlands. 

 The isolation and inaccessibility of 

 the Berber communities were pecu- 

 liarly favorable to the development 

 and propagation of numerous varieties 

 of cultivated plants. The result is 

 seen to-day in the myriad races of the 

 grape, fig, olive, apricot, and walnut 

 grown in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis. 



Every little group of mountains, one 

 might almost say every mountain 

 village, has its peculiar varieties. In 

 addition to the varieties now in cultiva- 

 tion, numbers exist in a half-wild state 

 which are doubtless relics of ancient 

 cultivation. There are also in north- 

 ern Africa truly indigenous relatives of 

 many of the cultivated plants. The 

 country is therefore a storehouse of 

 species and varieties whose utilization 

 as resistant stocks whereon to graft 

 more tender forms, or as material for 

 improvement by selection and hybridi- 

 zation, offers a wonderful opportunity 

 to the plant introducer and plant 

 breeder. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF EXPERIMENT 

 STATIONS IN ALGERIA 



These things did not escape the 

 keen eye of Dr. Trabut as he pursued 

 his botanical investigations throughout 

 the colony. There came to him the 

 idea of an experiment station where the 

 cultivated varieties and related wild 

 forms could be brought together for 

 comparative study. The colonial gov- 

 ernment was finally convinced of the 

 merit of this project and the Botanical 

 Service of Algeria was created with Dr. 

 Trabut as Director, a position which he 

 still holds. 



The much desired botanical station 

 was established at Rouiba in 1894 

 and was later removed to Maison Car- 

 ree, a suburb of Algiers.^ Little by 

 little the activities of the Service 

 expanded and are now fourfold, em- 

 bracing plant introduction, studies of 

 plant diseases and administration of 

 the plant quarantine regulations in 

 addition to the original botanical and 

 horticultural investigations. The par- 

 ent station at Rouiba has been retained 

 for viticultural investigations, a farm 

 of 250 acres in western Algeria has 

 been acquired for the study of irriga- 

 tion agriculture and of alkali soils, and 

 a Saharan station has been created for 

 the investigation of date culture. 



1 A summary of the work in plant introduction and plant breeding at Rouiba and at Maison 

 Carree is given'by L. Trabut and R. Maire in the Revue de Botanique Appliquee et d'Agnculture 

 Coloniale, 11:86-92. 1922. 



