OCTOBER 1 TO DECEMBER 31^ 1913. 



7 



for breeding purposes; an edible wild grape, Vitis amurensis 

 (S. P. I. No. 36753), from the Little Wu Tai Mountains, which appears 

 not yet to have been hybridized with American or European grapes; 

 an unusually vigorous form of wild peach, said to be a hybrid (S. P. I. 

 No. 36665); three dwarf flint varieties of maize, ripening in 8 to 10 

 weeks (S. P. I. Nos. 36667 to 36669) ; dwarf sorghum, growing not over 

 3 or 4 feet high, for short-season regions (S. P. I. Nos. 36670 to 36672) ; 

 three new wild roses (S. P. I. Nos. 36857 to 36859) from the Little Wu 

 Tai Mountains, for the use of American rose breeders; three varieties 

 of Chinese jujubes of good quahty (S. P. 1. Nos. 36852 to 36854); four 

 species of wild asparagus, one of which produces edible shoots (S. P. I. 

 Nos. 36766 to 36769); a variety of the kolil-rabi, which weighs as 

 much as 25 pounds (S. P. I. No. 36770); a variety of the plum spe- 

 cies, Prunus salicina (S. P. I. No. 36804), which produces a fruit 

 said to be the size of an apple, suited, according to Mr. Meyer, to the 

 cooler sections of the United States; a biennial species of Artemisia 

 (S. P. L No. 36797), which the Chinese use as a stock upon which to 

 graft chrysanthemums, suggested as of value in the North where the 

 nights are too cool and the summers too short to raise chrysanthe- 

 mums out of doors; and from the Little Wu Tai Mountains 39 spe- 

 cies of shrubs and ornamental plants (S. P. I. Nos. 36726 to 36764), 

 many of which will doubtless be of value around the farm homes 

 and in the city dooryards of the Northwest. 



Through the constantly growing circle of foreign and domestic 

 friends of plant introduction the following important importations 

 have been made : 



A variety of Mexican avocado, to which the writer's attention was 

 directed, found by Postmaster General Burleson growing in the 

 little Mexican village of Lagas, at 5,000 feet altitude (S. P. I. No. 

 36687); a collection of sprmg and winter wheats from Turkestan 

 (S. P. 1. Nos. 36498 to 36527), sent by Dr. Richard Schroeder, who 

 beheves they should do especially well in California and Utah, where 

 summer rains are rare; four varieties of the papaya (S. P. I. Nos. 

 36275 to 36278) from Minas Geraes, Brazil, where a single seedling 

 produced by actual count 200 fruits in 30 months; four independent 

 shipments of Korean ginseng seed (S. P. I. Nos. 36282, 36596, 36716, 

 and 36900); the Quina de Pernambuca, a small yellow-flowered tree 

 which will stand light frosts and which is used like cinchona as 

 a medicinal plant (S. P. I. No. 36661); the ilama, a red-fleshed anona 

 from Tlatlaya, Mexico (S. P. I. No. 36632); a collection of soy, mung, 

 and adzuki beans from Harbin, Manchuria (S. P. I. Nos. 36914 to 

 36923); a collection of sorghum varieties from German East Africa 

 (S. P. I. Nos. 36610 to 36616); a barberry with edible fruit from the 

 foothills of the Cordilleras of Argentina (S. P. I. No. 36626); a yellow 

 Ussurian plum (S. P. I. No. 36607), which wiU probably prove hardy 



