74 



IMPORTANCE OF PLANT INTRODUCTION 



of plant introduction a great wealth - creating 

 power, and, convinced of the good he could do for 

 his country by aiding its progress, he spent the 

 greater part of his time and en- 

 ergy during the years of 1896, 

 1898-99, 1901-02, and 1903 in 

 making, at his own expense, a 

 tour of reconnaissance of the 

 world in the interest of the Office 

 of Plant Introduction. He took 

 the writer with him as his agri- 

 cultural explorer, and estab- 

 lished correspondents in most of 

 the principal points of plant in- 

 terest in the world. This list of 

 correspondents is one of the great 

 assets of the Office, enabling it 

 to secure quickly from any re- 

 gion the seeds or plants desired 

 for hosts of experiments which 

 the Office is pressed by private 

 experimenters to take up. In the 

 course of these six years of 

 travel a mass of material was 

 imported from all parts of the 

 world, aggregating at least 1,200 

 different selected things that 

 seemed worthy of trial in Amer- 

 ica. Many of these are now form- 

 ing subjects of study and exper- 

 iment in different parts of the 

 country and have been alluded 

 to under the successes achieved 

 or the problems now being 

 worked out by the Department specialists. 



The profession of agricultural exploration has 

 been originated and developed by the Office of 

 Plant Introduction. The first explorer, Mr. N. E. 



The Hun- 

 garian paprika as 

 grown by Dr. R. 

 H. True in South 

 Carolina. Until 

 this was taken 

 tip by the Bureau 

 of Plant Indus- 

 try all the pap- 

 rika usod in 

 America was im- 

 ported from Aus- 

 tro-Hungary and 

 other European 

 countries. 



Fie. 96. The prickly pear or Tuna (Opuntia Picm-Indica) , 

 as sold on the streets and in the fancy fruit stores of this 

 country. 



Hansen, made an extended trip through Russia and 

 the steppes of Siberia in search of hardy fruits and 

 drought-resistant forage plants, the result being the 

 introduction of the Turkestan alfalfa plants. Mr. 



W. T. Swingle, on two separate trips, explored the 

 oases of the Sahara for the best sorts of date 

 palms, and unearthed a host of new and interesting 

 forage and fruit plants in Algeria, with many of 

 which various experimenters are now at work ; he 

 studied and perfected the best method of sending 

 over the caprifying insect- that has since made 

 Smyra fig culture a success in California, and 

 started investigations of the pistachio industry in 

 Sicily and Asia Minor, besides calling the attention 

 of olive-growers to the dry-land olive culture of 

 Tunis. Mr. C. S. Scofield spent a summer in Algeria 

 collecting the seeds of a lot of promising legumi- 

 nous plants that are now attracting interest as new 

 fodder plants in California. At the same time he 

 secured the best of the Kabili fig varieties that 

 are now growing in the same state. The two 

 Russian expeditions of 

 Mr. M. A. Carleton were 

 made in search of cereals 

 that would resist the rust 

 and the extreme droughts 

 of the great western 

 plains, and the tons of 

 seed wheat that were dis- 

 tributed as the result of 

 his trips have led to the 

 establishment of the 

 durum wheat industry in 

 the Dakotas, Nebraska 

 and Kansas, and that is 

 now attracting the atten- 

 tion of the Califomians 

 as a possible solution of 

 their serious wheat prob- 

 lem. Mr. E. A. Bessey 

 made a journey through 

 the Caucasus after hardy 

 grapes and cherries, and 

 went into Turkestan for 

 sand -binding plants and 

 alfalfas. Dr. S. A. Knapp 

 was sent twice to the 

 Orient to study the rice 

 varieties of those great 

 rice - growing countries, 

 and introduced among other things the Kiushu 

 rice that has been referred to. Mr. T. H. Kearney 

 has made two explorations of the north coast 

 of Africa, the first to select strains of the best 

 Egyptian cotton (Figs. 100, 101), the second to 

 make a collection of the many important dates 

 that grow in the oases of southern Tunis. He has 

 given the first account by a trained agriculturist 

 of the date-palm industry written on the ground at 

 the time of ripening of the fruit. Mr. 0. W. Bar- 

 rett, during the time he was stationed at Porto 

 Rico, was sent to other of the West Indian islands, 

 and he has introduced a number of valuable plants 

 into the tropical territory there, notably varieties of 

 the cacao and the yautia, the root crop already men- 

 tioned, the arracacha of Venezuela and others. The 

 discovery by Mr. P. H. Rolfs that the vanilla can 

 be fruited in Florida led to his recent trip to Mexico 

 to study the vanilla industry of eastern Mexico, 



Fig. 97. The passion fruit 

 iPassiflora edulis), one 

 of the commonest pro- 

 ducts in the Natal mar- 

 ket and which in Aus- 

 tralia and New Zealand 

 is a popular table fruit. 



