Vor CAI NO: 10 
GEOGIRAIPIENIC 
MAGA ZZIINIE 
WASHINGTON 
OCTOBER, 1911 
ne 
NEW PLANT IMMIGRANTS* 
By Davip FaircHILpD 
AGRICULTURAL EXPLORER IN CHARGE OF FOREIGN SEED AND PLAN?T INTRODUCTION, 
UnITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
O READERS of the NationaL 
GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE who have 
wandered with men of many 
tastes all over the world, the thought 
must often have come, ‘““Of what use are 
all the strange plants which make up the 
landscapes of the pictures?” The globe, 
with its kaleidoscopic panorama of peo- 
ple, animals, and plants, has been whirled 
before you, as it were, and you have in 
your minds the picture of a ball circling 
through space, covered with a film of 
plants, animals, and men in constant 
change. So varied is this film of plants 
that there are probably half a million 
distinct, specific forms in it, and yet man 
uses only a few hundreds for his own 
purposes. 
To change, in a measure, the distribu- 
tion of the really useful plants of the 
world is what the office of Foreign Seed 
and Plant Introduction of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture is trying to do. 
_ The motive ‘underlying this work might 
be called the ambition to make the world 
more habitable. If one is inclined to be 
pessimistic with regard to the food 
supply of the world, he has only to talk 
to any one of the enthusiasts of the 
Department of Agriculture to get a pic- 
* See also “Our Plant Immigrants,” 
April, 1906. 
by David Fairchild, 
ture of the widening vista of agricultural 
possibilities which would make him real- 
ize that the food problems of the race 
are not hung in the balance of our Great 
Plains area, and that the food-producing 
power of the world is still practically 
unknown, because we have just begun to 
study in a modern way the relative per- 
formance of different plants. 
We may not always grow the plants 
we do now. Some of them are expen- 
sive food producers, some produce foods 
that are difficult to digest, and some we 
may leave behind as we learn to like 
others better. 
What to grow was not so serious a 
question to the early Phcenician peasant, 
who knew perhaps a dozen crops, as it 
is becoming to the American agricultur- 
ist, who can pick from the crops of all 
the world the one best suited to his land 
and climate. Changes come so rapidly 
nowadays that if a man today talks of 
“pears” he may mean what are ordi- 
narily thought of as pears, or he may 
refer to alligator pears which he is grow- 
ing in Florida, or prickly pears which he 
is cultivating in Texas. Both the alliga- 
tor pear and the prickly pear have come 
in as crops to be reckoned with within 
NaTIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, 
