YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



the country. Much disappointment resulted when no sort was found 

 among them sufficiently hardy to endure the winters north of the Gulf 

 and South Atlantic States, except in specially sheltered locations. 

 The fruits of most of them were found to retain their astringent 

 flavor until they were too soft to ship or handle, so that their market 

 value was considerably impaired. 



Eather indefinite reports continued to come from travelers and 

 missionaries of hardier large-fruited sorts grown in the interior of 

 China that were superior in many respects to the Japanese varieties. 



In an effort to obtain stock of such varieties, Hon. Charles Denby, 

 then United States Minister to China, at the request of the Pomologist 

 of the Department, in 1894 and again in 1895, procured and for- 

 warded to the Department scions of sorts the fruit of which was of 

 high repute in the Peking market. The scions were of two varieties, 

 and Mr. Denby reported upon them at the time as follows : * 



These scions were procured at the village of Niuchuang, about 100 miles west 

 of Peking. They were brought from this place because of the reputation it has 

 for persimmons, being much resorted to by the Chinese themselves for scions. 

 The trees from which they were cut grew on level ground at the foot of the hills. 

 The soil was a yellowish loam, and the crops grown in the vicinity wore Indian 

 corn and tall millet. An ordinary specimen of the Kao Chuang variety exam- 

 ined by me was 9 inches in circumference, 2^ inches thick, and weighed 6 ounces. 

 Such fruit is sold at retail in Peking in immense quantities at 1 to 2 cash each 

 (5 to 10 for 1 cent gold). The Mo pan variety measured 12 inches in circumfer- 

 ence, 2 inches thick, and weighed llf ounces. This retailed at 3 to 5 cash each 

 (2 to 3 for 1 cent gold). 



The fruit is orange yellow in color. It is sweet in flavor, recalling the taste 

 of the American persimmon without its astringent effect It is eaten raw. It 

 ripens without frost. 



Unfortunately the several lots of scions sent at that time, though 

 packed and forwarded with great care, failed to survive the journey, 

 arriving too dry and lifeless to propagate. Persimmon seeds sent by 

 Minister Denby at the same time germinated freely, and several hun- 

 dred trees were grown from them for distribution, but all proved to 

 be of the small-fruited Diospyros lotus, which is used in the Orient as 

 a stock for the more highly esteemed varieties. 



After this unsuccessful effort no systematic attempt to obtain the 

 large varieties appears to have been made until 1905, when Mr. Frank 

 N. Meyer, agricultural explorer in the Office of Foreign Seed and 

 Plant Introduction of the Bureau of Plant Industry, sent from the 

 Ming Tombs Valley, west of Peking, several lots of scions of a variety 

 evidently closely similar to, if not identical with, the " Mo pan " pre- 

 viously obtained by Minister Denby. This sort, which Mr. Meyer 



1 Letter of Hon. Charles Denby to Secretary of Agriculture, dated Peking, November 19, 

 1895. 



