66 
Journal of the Mitchell Society. 
\_Junc 
and allowed to grow with grass and weeds until the plant 
has reached a weak maturity and is just ready to bear grain. 
Then the grass is cleared out, the corn well worked and 
heavily fertilized, when its stimulated growing energy goes 
all to fruiting. It has its parallel in the intellectual activity 
of the boy who comes from the back districts where he had 
no advantages of an intellectual sort, but his energies being 
aroused at the right moment, often surpasses his more fortu- 
nate associates in his college course and in the race of life. 
Some of the most interesting experiments in plant-breed- 
ing have resulted in the production of food stuffs adapted to 
semi-arid regions, and these are of especial interest to us for 
the reason that we have a long strip of semi-arid land in the 
South, lying mainly in the sand-hills region and immediately 
bordering that region on the northwest, little more than a 
barren sand-waste until the introduction of new methods and 
new plants suited to its conditions. 
Alfalfa has been bred to resist both drought and alkali, and 
it has also been found in nature. Agents of our Agricultu- 
ral Department searched the earth for what was needed, and 
found just the thing desired growing in an oasis of the Alge- 
rian Sahara. Luther Burbank has bred a spineless and edi- 
ble cactus admirably adapted by nature to such regions, and 
this may yet become an important food plant in certain por- 
tions of the South. 
Rice forms the principal food of one-half the population of 
the earth. It is more widely used as a food stuff than any 
other cereal. Where dense populations are dependent for 
food upon an annual crop, and the climate admits of its cul- 
tivation, rice has become the staple food. The luxuriant 
growth of leguminous plants (peas, beans, etc.) in warm 
climates provides the nitrogenous elements necessary to sup- 
plement rice. A combination of rice with legumes is a much 
cheaper complete food than wheat and meat, and can be pro- 
duced on a much smaller area. 
The Carolinas in the decade ending 1860 produced approxi- 
