11 



example of discovery and improvement by a civilized race, and it can 

 scarcely be doubted that the modern methods of extensive plant breed- 

 ing will open the door for a rapidly increasing* number of new food 

 X^lants. 



That such work has been done, is now being done, and is in contem- 

 plation by governments of foreign countries may be judged by the 

 following brief accounts. To be sure, as quite pertinently pointed out 

 by Mr. J. E. O'Connor, in an excellent article on the introduction of 

 the carob tree in India,* the methods of introduction are not always 

 properly chosen. He says : 



The article is first lauded as a most useful tiling, and its acclimatization declared 

 to be most desirable. Then there is a lull. A little later some official or perhaps 

 some nonofficial gentleman, with a taste for those matters, sees the plant growing 

 in some favorable locality, is struck with its appearance, introduces it with more or 

 less success, and then leaves the district or the country, and the subject drops out 

 of sight with him. A little later the whole process is gone through again, and so 

 on da capo, the very slightest reference, if any, being made by each successive 

 experimenter to the results of the trials made before his time. Thus the experiment, 

 which might, if carefully watched, finally show in two or three years whether it 

 was worth pursuing or not, drags on its weary course through thirty and forty years 

 with indecisive results at last, and the moral of the story is, that such experiments 

 should be carried out in suitable conditions under the close supervision of a central 

 Government department, charged especially with such business and competent to 

 undertake it. 



The history of the introduction of cork oaks into the Southern States 

 illustrates the need of continuity of experiments. In 1858 cork-oak 

 acorns were secured and distributed by this Department throughout 

 the Southern States and California, and from occasional trees still 

 found scattered through the region it is evident that the plant will 

 grow and thrive, but, owing to lack of early records and in the a.bsence 

 of reintroductions, no progress has been made toward the establish- 

 ment of the cork industry. Corks in 1893 cost us $1,993,025, and un- 

 doubtedly cost us vastly more to-day, owing to the increasing pro- 

 duction of wine. Over 3,488,000 acres are planted to cork oaks along 

 the Mediterranean, and it is a comparatively recent industry there. It 

 is not too much to suppose that Yankee ingenuity will some day elimi- 

 nate the necessity for cheap labor in this culture, as it has by employ- 

 ing the McCormick reaper in the rice fields of Louisiana, and the United 

 States will then be no longer dex)endent upon European nations for 

 corks, t 



The history of cinchona culture on the Island of Java, which small 

 island now furnishes two-thirds of the quinine on the markets of the 



* O'Connor, J. E. The carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua) with reference to its cultiva- 

 tion in India. Notes on Products prepared in the Department of Revenue, Agricul- 

 ture, and Commerce, 1811-1879, Calcutta, p. 6Q. 



t Jones, J. D. Cork oak. Some Foreign Trees of Economic Value Adapted to 

 Planting in the Southern States. Bull. 11, Division of Forestry, U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, 1895. 



