3 



The plants Imported by this office of 

 the Department of Agriculture are in most 

 cases so little known to experimenters that 

 their scientific or even common names alone 

 would convey little idea of their character. 

 To distribute them under a name simply and 

 depend upon the experimenters to look them up 

 in a catalogue entails a burden upon the in- 

 vestigator which often results in his being 

 ignorant at the close of the year of what the 

 new plant is good for. To enable him at any 

 time to refresh his memory as to the use of 

 any one of these introductions, special la- 

 bels have been devised upon which are printed 

 sixty words of description. These descrip- 

 tive labels are attached to the plants when 

 they are sent out. This catalogue is made up 

 of the identical descriptions which will ap- 

 pear upon them. 



The information on the labels consists 

 of the Seed and Plant Introduction (S.P.I.) 

 number, under which the plants are known at 

 all times, of the scientific name and a com- 

 mon name, when one has been adopted for* this 

 country, and a brief description of the plant 

 with its ases and, where possible, a sugges- 

 tion of the general region uo which the plant 

 is likely to be adapted. 



In some instances few or no plants of the 

 exact number given in the description may be 

 available for distribution, but in such cases 

 plants of the same species and variety under 

 another int r oduc t i on numbe r may be substituted. 



