8 SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED. 



bamboos, some of which are hardy enough to grow in the climate of 

 Peking, which resembles that of Philadelphia; a wild oat from the 

 dry elevated portions of the Wutaishan, and soy beans, cowpeas, 

 sorghums, cottons, and many other very valuable things from this 

 great Klondike of new plant varieties, where almost every cultivator 

 saves his own seeds and thus originates new strains. 



Special mention should be made of an unusual piece of introduc- 

 tion work which Consul Magelssen, of Bagdad, carried out at our 

 request, i. e., the securing and proper labeling of what may be con- 

 sidered one of the most successfully landed collections of Arabian 

 date-palm suckers. 



Through the increasingly large number of friends of plant intro- 

 duction both abroad and at home a number of interesting things have 

 been secured by correspondence : Cork acorns from southern Spain ; 

 a summer orange called the Natsu mikan, from Japan, which ripens 

 in midsummer and is served on the tables of foreigners there just as 

 the pomelo is in America ; a collection of Indian green-manure and 

 fodder plants from Nimboli; a broad-leaved variety of alfalfa from 

 Elche, Spain; a collection of taros from Cochin China; a collection 

 of rare sorghums from Entebbe, Uganda; the sugar palm from the 

 East Indies; the white Alfonso mango from Bombay; a unique collec- 

 tion of wild and cultivated potatoes from the archipelago of Chiloe, in 

 southern Chile, the home of the potato, and from the adjoining main- 

 land, made by Mr. Jose D. Husbands ; and a collection of Guatemalan 

 cacti and a Central American dahlia secured for us by the late Prof. 

 W. A. Kellerman just before his unfortunate death in the Guatemalan 

 forest. 



It should be repeated that the seeds and plants here listed are not 

 necessarily for distribution, nor is it always possible to supply those 

 who desire the various things listed here with what they want ; but it 

 is the aim of the office to get anything that a plant breeder or plant 

 experimenter wants, whether it appears in these inventories or not, 

 provided it is not already on the market, in which case the applicant 

 will be referred to the catalogues which advertise it. To introduce 

 a plant and get it into the regular trade channels without in any way 

 interfering with the legitimate business in plant novelties which the 

 seedsmen and nurserymen of the country are so well carrying on is 

 one of the objects of our work. 



The botanical determinations of the material are, as in the previous 

 inventory, those of Messrs. W. F. Wight and H. C. Skeels, while the 

 inventory has been prepared by Miss Mary A. Austin. 



David Fairchild, 

 Agricultural Explorer in Charge. 



Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, 



Washington, D. C, October 7, 1908. 



