INVENTORY OF SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED BV 

 THE OFFICE OF FOREIGN SEED AND PLANT IN- 

 TRODUCTION DURING THE PERIOD FROM APRIL 

 1 TO MAY 31, 1920 (NO. 63; NOS. 49T9T TO 50647). 



INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 



This inventory, for the period of April and May, 1920, gives some 

 idea of the voluminous stream of plant immigrants which is now 

 pouring into America unchecked by the war. It represents 15 

 arrivals for every working day of the period, and when one tries 

 to forecast the future of any 15 new arrivals, the size of this under- 

 taking becomes apparent. To find every day for 15 more or less 

 new plants a suitable home in which they will grow, be studied by 

 some observing mind, and have a chance to prove whether or not 

 they are desirable newcomers would be a decided undertaking in 

 itself; but when one considers that each immigrant is not merely a 

 single individual but represents from a dozen cuttings to a hundred 

 thousand seeds, the real difficulties of the undertaking begin to 

 appear. Not only this: There are the immigrants which have come 

 in earlier and which still require attention. To-day these represent 

 a certain proportion of the more than 50,000 arrivals which have been 

 ■scattered all over America for the past 23 years, during which 

 period this office has attempted to supervise their arrival and dis- 

 tribution. 



While 10,000 amateur and professional agriculturists are on the 

 lists of those who want to take care of these immigrants, the limita- 

 tions of any one experimenter are soon reached, because the testing 

 of a new introduction takes years and requires more money than 

 many people feel they can afford to spend. But the interest in 

 new plants is bound to grow with our appreciation of the fact that 

 they have great wealth-producing power and that our dooryards 

 and parks, our forests and landscapes, are to mean vastly more to 

 our children than they do to us. With that growth is coming a 

 larger number of experimenters and a greater expenditure of time 

 and money upon this phase of American life. 



I find it increasingh' difficult to single out the most important 

 introductions from 851 arrivals, particularh^ since so many of them 

 seem important; but perhaps my long, though often superficial, 



1 



