o NEW PLANT INTRODUCTIONS, 1916-17. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



This catalogue describes more than 500 species or varieties of 

 foreign plants, most of which have not been grown to any extent in 

 this country. Our familiarity with them is consequently very lim- 

 ited and they are not like standard seeds and plants, the behavior 

 of which can be predicted with more or less certainty. 



They have been imported for trial because of some direct or indi- 

 rect use which it is believed can be made of them by Americans. 

 They are introduced primarily for use by the experts of the United 

 States^ Department of Agriculture and the State experiment stations 

 of the country, but many of them will be available to such private 

 experimenters as have the necessary facilities and desire to test 

 them. 



Since these plants must ultimately be grown by private individuals 

 before their commercial success is assured, it may be well to point 

 out that private experimenters who test these problematical new 

 plants are assisting in a very practical way in the plant-introduction 

 work of the country, even though they are not paid for their work. 

 It is often around the successful cultivation of a new introduction 

 by some private individual that a new plant industry begins. 



The plants imported by the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture through this office are in most cases so little known to experi- 

 menters that their scientific or even common names alone would 

 convey little idea of their character. To distribute them under a 

 name simply, depending upon the experimenters to look them up in 

 a catalogue, entails a burden upon the investigator which often 

 results in his being at the close of the year ignorant of the uses of the 

 new plant. To enable him at any time to refresh his memory as to 

 the use of any one of these introductions, special labels have been 

 devised upon which are printed about sixty words of description. 

 These descriptive labels are attached to the plants when they are 

 sent out. This catalogue is made up of the identical descriptions 

 which will appear upon them. 



The information on the labels consists of the Seed and Plant Intro- 

 duction (S. P. I.) number, under which the plants are known at all 

 times, of the scientific name, a common name (when one has been 

 adopted for this country), a brief description of the plant with its 

 uses, and, where possible, a suggestion of the general region to which 

 the plant is likely to be adapted. 



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