io8 The National Geographic Magazine 



Original appearance of Salt Lands 



There are also thousands of unem- 

 ployed acres of hilly lands in the Caro- 

 linas where the conditions are good for 

 the culture of the Japanese plant from 

 which the finest writing paper in the 

 world is made, and the Office has intro- 

 duced and planted there thousands of 

 these plants to see if they will not de- 

 velop into an industry which will util- 

 ize these great waste areas. 



The barley-growers of the country 

 are growing millions of bushels of 

 grain for the brewers, but among the 

 hosts of so-called varieties that are rec- 

 ognized on the grain markets not one 

 is a pure race or breed. The Swedes 

 have long since found the use of pure 

 barleys of great advantage to the brew- 

 ers, and their plant-breeders have cre- 

 ated pure types. The Department has 

 imported these, and they are now on 

 extensive trial by the best barley- 

 growers in the country. 



Alaska, with its cool, short summers 

 and extremely cold, long winters, of- 

 fers new problems for Plant Introduc- 

 tion. The crops cultivated by the 

 farmers of the great plains are accus- 

 tomed to a long, hot summer, and when 

 tried in Alaska they are caught by the 

 early autumn frosts before they are 



half ripe. To meet these new condi- 

 tions, Norway, Sweden, and Finland 

 have been drawn upon for grains and 

 vegetables, and the most successful 

 oats grown in Alaska today are the Fin- 

 nish black oats that were introduced by 

 the Office of Plant Introduction. 



For the tropical regions of Porto 

 Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines, and the 

 Panama Canal Zone, there are hosts of 

 new possibilities open. The sisal fiber 

 importations from Mexico cost this 

 country over $16,000,000 a year, and we 

 propose to demonstrate on a practical 

 scale that the sisal plant will grow in 

 Porto Rico and supply a share, at least, 

 of the thousands of miles of binding 

 twine which the Western farmers use 

 in their harvest fields. 



There are a host of new fruits which 

 are common in the oriental tropics and 

 which would quickly win their way to 

 popular favor on our markets, waiting 

 to be brought in and made into thriving 

 industries. The run-down coffee varie- 

 ties need new strains to invigorate 

 them, and it is a possibility that the 

 wild coffees of Abyssinia which Consul 

 Skinner has secured for the Department 

 will bring this about. There are new 

 root crops like the taro, the yautia, and 



