ipoy] Garden, Field, and Forest of the Nation. 67 
mately eighty-five million pounds of clean rice. Now the 
total product for a like period is only about thirty-five mil- 
lion pounds, of which North Carolina only produced about 
seven million. But the total rice product of the entire South 
has advanced from 103 millions to 143 millions in the same 
time, thanks to the valuable investigations of and improved 
methods introduced by Dr. S. A. Knapp, of the United States 
Department of Agriculture. 
Horticulture is coming to be a most important branch of 
agriculture, and its surprising progress has already been so 
fully discussed in our newspapers and periodical literature that 
I need do little more than advert to it here. Suffice it to say 
that in 1870 the export of fruits preserved in cans or other- 
wise from the United States to foreign countries amounted in 
value to $81,735.00. Ten years later the value of the canned 
fruits exported had advanced to $371,118.50. In 1890 it was 
over $600,000.00, and in 1900 had passed two millions. This 
does not give us any indication of the enormously increasing 
domestic consumption of fruits. 
It is an interesting fact that the traveler of to-day does not 
find his way across the desert by the bones of men and beasts 
that have started on the perilous journey before him, but by 
the shining tin cans left by those who have made the jour- 
ney in safety. 
This progress in fruit growing has been made possible by 
the breeding of fruits to suit different climates, and by the 
importation of insects to prey upon the insect enemies of 
fruit trees. 
Already our trucking interests have made the South the 
garden of the nation, for we have here the broad coastal 
plain soils that yield readily to cultivation; but business 
methods have gone hand in hand with the application of 
scientific methods and are always equally important to the 
agriculturist. The managers of the truck-growers’ associa- 
tion see to it that the crops come on in regular rotation from 
Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Delaware. 
