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transplanted to American soil require special preparation. It is investi- 

 gative work. Should the time come when agricultural attaches are 

 located in foreign countries, their assistance and researches will lead 

 without doubt to the securing of large numbers of new and valuable 

 plants. In the absence of such foreign representatives, trained espe- 

 cially for agricultural work, the most economical method of securing 

 new plants from foreign countries is to send trained explorers to find 

 them and import them. Markham established in the Britisli East Indies 

 in one year, at the risk of his life, it is true, 9,733 cinchona trees (nine 

 different species), which he had collected in the mountains of Peru. 

 Seven years of governmental correspondence had failed to secure a 

 single living plant.* 



Fortune established the tea industry in India, but only at the expense 

 of several years' collecting in the Chinese tea growing regions. 



Although it is now fifty years since Fortune made his explorations in 

 China, and brought back with him the remarkable collections of new 

 plants which made him fiimous, neither England nor America has seen 

 fit to follow up these preliminary surveys which were so profitable. In 

 response to a letter of inquiry regarding the methods which should be 

 employed to secure new plants from this immense and as yet unexplored 

 region Mr. Augustine Henry, t well known for his researches on the 

 Chinese flora, says: '^I would not waste money on postage. Send a 

 man ! "' 



Such collectors or agricultural explorers should preferably be trained 

 agriculturists and horticulturists possessing the necessary i^ractical 

 experience which would enable them to judge of the value of varieties, 

 and acquainted with the problems to be solved for such crops as it is 

 hoped will be benefited by the introductions. They should, in addition, 

 be plant pathologists, in order that the imported plants shall be free, 

 from sucli diseases and insects as are otherwise liable to be introduced, 

 and a knowledge of what constitutes a weed would i)revent the selec- 

 tion of such plants as show objectionable tendencies. 



Too great stress can scarcely be lolaced upon these requirements, as 

 a failure, for example, to be acquainted with the appearances and habits 



*Markliam, Cleraonts E. Travels in Peru and India. 1862, pp. 60-63, 491. 



t Henry, Augustine, in a letter frc:u Szemao par Laokay, Tonkiug, China, Marcli 

 4, 1898, states: ''The interior of China is one vast treasure of plants, useful, orna- 

 mental, and unknown. * * * It is curious that England could send out a 

 Fortune fifty years ago, and that now the rich countries of Europe and the United 

 States can't repeat that experiment of sending out a man. * ^ * Here (in. 

 Szemao) there is a Pyrus, with fruit as largo as an apple, which is edible. It is 

 most likely a very promising thing. There are four ovules in each locule, yet it is 

 rather an apple than a quince. It is not a good fruit as it stands, hut it has not been 

 cultivated by the Chinese, and its possibilities are unknown. The Ribes and Eubus 

 of the Hupei Mountains arc very numerous in species, and I think of better flavor 

 and actually larger than any cultivated ones I remember, yet they are all wild spe- 

 cies. In Yunau and Sychnan, Rubus will be represented by 100 distinct species (50 

 are known), or perhaps more. 



