58 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



^■'^^ssteaft 





PLANT-COLLECTING CARAVAN EN ROUTE FOR THE WU TAI SHAN I CHINA 



Unlike the gold-diggers' caravans, the mules are not loaded with picks and shovels and 

 panning outfits. They are carrying bales of the moss in which florists pack plants, sacks in 

 which seeds are shipped, and driers in which botanists press leaves and flowers. It was with 

 this kind of an equipment that Frank Meyer traveled many thousands of miles in the out- 

 of-the-way parts of Asia, looking for the relatives of our cultivated plants and others which 

 could be grown somewhere in America and give pleasure and prosperity to millions. 





have gladdened his heart and made him 

 realize in a tangible way what a great 

 pioneer work he was doing. 



AN KN RICHER OF THE) GARDENS OP THE 

 WORLD 



To Meyer, plants appealed just as to 

 some people dogs or horses do, and this 

 intense interest made him pack his col- 

 lections with infinite patience, wrapping 

 them in moss and Chinese oiled paper 

 and burlap with his own hands before 

 sending them by mail from some point in 

 the interior of China to Washington. 



Meyer was a 1 follander by birth and 

 spent his childhood among the gardens 

 of Amsterdam, rising through his own 

 talent- to be the assistant of lingo de 

 Vries. I lis passion for travel took- him 

 on foot across the Alps and into Italy to 

 the orange groves and vineyards of 



the Mediterranean, and later led him to 



explore America and northern Mexico on 

 foot. This restlessness, combined with 

 his love for plants, drew him to my at- 

 tention at a time when we were searching 

 for some one who could travel over the 

 roadless regions of China. 



Meyer's work has always seemed to 

 have a peculiar fascination for magazine 

 and newspaper writers, and numerous 

 are the picturesque accounts of his "ex- 

 periences." Somehow, when I stand in 

 an orchard and reach up into one of the 

 trees and pick from its gray branches 

 some of the large seedless persimmons 

 which are the result of his work, I feel 

 that he has left something more tangible, 

 more inspiring, as a result of his travels, 

 than is represented by the stories of mid- 

 night attempts on his life by ruffians in 

 Harbin or threatened shootings by Chi- 

 nese soldiers in the Kansu Province, ex- 

 citing as those experiences were. 



