8 SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED. 



Of the nearly 4,400 new introductions, a very large number repre- 

 sent work accomplished by the explorations of Mr. Barbour Lathrop, 

 of Chicago, with whom the writer had the pleasure of being- associated 

 as Agricultural Explorer. Mr. Lathrop's explorations, which have 

 required about four years of travel abroad, were carried out with the 

 one practical object of making a reconnoissance of the useful plant 

 possibilities of the world, and have successfully covered every continent 

 and touched every important archipelago. Owing to the very out-of- 

 the-way parts of the world visited by Mr. Lathrop, a large number of 

 the seeds and plants secured by him are so rare that they will be exceed- 

 ingly difficult to replace, and the Office considers itself extremely for- 

 tunate to have enlisted the cooperation of such a public-spirited man 

 as Mr. Lathrop, who has conducted these various explorations almost 

 entirety at his own expense, with no other idea than that of benefiting 

 the American public through this branch of the work of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. No stronger evidence is needed of the practical 

 value of plant-introduction work than that furnished by Mr. Lathrop's 

 devotion to its study. 



The collections of the several Department agricultural explorers 

 which are represented in this inventory have also been gathered from 

 a wide range of the earth's surface. The explorations of Dr. S. A. 

 Knapp, the results of which are represented in the inventory, covered 

 his second voyage to the Orient in 1901-2, and comprised a trip to 

 Hawaii, Japan, China, Manila, the Straits Settlements, and British 

 India in search of information bearing on the rice question of the 

 South. Bavaria, Austria, Dalmatia, Greece, Egypt, Tunis, Algeria, 

 and Spain were explored by the writer for brewing barle} T s, hops, 

 fruits, and forage crops. Mr. C. S. Scofield made a careful survey of 

 the leguminous fodder and green manure crops of Algeria and inci- 

 dentally a study of the wheat varieties of France. Mr. M. A. Carleton 

 made a second trip in 1900 through Austria and Roumania, into Rus- 

 sia and Central Asia, and returned through Turkey and Servia in 

 search of cereals and forage crops. Mr. E. R. Lake, a specialist on 

 American prunes, was sent in 1900 on a short trip to the prune-grow- 

 ing regions of France. Dr. J. N. Rose, of the U. S. National Museum, 

 assisted us in 1901 in his botanizing trips in Mexico to secure a col- 

 lection of desert plants and varieties of other plants of economic 

 importance. Mr. Ernst A. Besse}' was sent as agricultural explorer 

 on two expeditions in search of hardy alfalfas and more resistant 

 fruits for the Northwest. The first was through Russia to Turkestan 

 in 1902, and the second to the Caucasus in 1903. Mr. Thomas H. 

 Kearney and Mr. T. H. Means, the latter of the Bureau of Soils, were 

 sent as explorers to the arid regions of Algeria, Tunis, and Egypt in 

 search of better strains of Egyptian cotton and alkali-resistant grains 

 and fodder plants. Mr. P. H. Rolfs, in charge of the Subtropical 



