INVENTORY OF SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED 

 BY THE OFFICE OF FOREIGN SEED AND PLANT 

 INTRODUCTION DURING THE PERIOD FROM JULY 

 1 TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1913 (NO. 36; NOS. 3566TTO 

 36258). 



INTRODTJCTORY STATEMENT. 



This inventory covers the summer months only, but anyone looking 

 through it will get a very fair idea of the stream of new plants which 

 the department is bringing into the country and, after propagating, 

 is sending out to experimenters scattered from Alaska to southern 

 Florida. The limitation of funds allotted for this work prevents the 

 making of a thorough governmental investigation of more than a very 

 few of these newly introduced plants, but private experimenters in 

 increasing numbers are placing their facilities for testing plants at 

 our disposal, and the aggregate observations made by this corps of 

 volunteer experimenters furnish the proof in large measure of the 

 adaptability of these various plants to American conditions of climate 

 and to the economic conditions of American life. 



Although it is often the case that some unheralded, obscure plant in 

 this process of selection turns out to have gTcat value, it may not be 

 out of place, as has been the custom for a number of years past, 

 to emphasize particular introductions which, on their face, so to 

 speak, appear to be particularly promising. 



There appear to be localities in America where a short-season corn 

 which will ripen with comparatively little sunlight may be of dis- 

 tinct value, and Mr. Wight's introduction of a variety (No. 35998) 

 from Castro, a cool, rainy region in Chile, may help solve this problem. 



The success of several of the foreign cover crops previously intro- 

 duced will create an interest in the East African legume, Meihomia 

 Urta (No. 36060), and its trial is recommended in the orchards of 

 Florida. The Australian Rhodes grass, CMoris faraguaiensis (No. 

 36255), which is pronounced by certain Australian experimenters 

 distinctly more productive than the South African form, growing to 

 5 feet in height and yielding hay of a finer quality and twice as much, 

 can not fail to be of interest to stockmen in the Gulf States, where the 

 South African variety has already been so successful. 



Note.— This bulletin is intended for distribution to the agricultural experiment stations and the more 

 important private cooperators of the Department of Agriculture. 



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