DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



Pistache Culture. 



The highest price nut to be found in American markets (retailing for 

 as much as $1.50 per pound) is the green pistache, used for coloring ice 

 creams and other confections, and sometimes eaten as other nuts. Little 

 was known of the origin or specific identity of this until the matter was 

 taken up by the Agricultural Department explorers and the genus, in- 

 volved in considerable botanical confusion, revised and monographed by 

 Dr. Walter T. Swingle, in charge of the Laboratory of Plant Life History. 



The pistache seems to be a considerably drouth resistant tree, and one 

 capable of enduring more cold than the olive or the citrus fruits. It be- 

 longs to the great order Anacardiaceae, along with the sumach, and be- 

 sides the cultivated variety producing the edible nut, comprises a number 

 of other species, natives of southern and central Asia. 



A fact long known botanically, but the importance of which had 

 escaped attention, is that a species of pistache grows wild in southern 

 Texas, along some of the tributaries of the Rio Grande. The possibilities 

 of using this as a stock for the nut bearing varieties are being investigated 

 by the Department.- A large number of seedlings of several species use- . 

 ful for stocks have been grown at the Plant Introduction Garden at Chico, 

 California, and disseminated among ranchmen over quite a wide area of 

 the southwest, with a view of having them budded to choice nut pro- 

 ducing varieties as soon as the proper time arrives. 



Varieties of the Zizyphus, etc. 



A fruit which is in no wise related to the true date is sometimes to 

 be found in the Chinese stalls in San Francisco, and other Pacific coast 

 towns, under the name of the Chinese date. This is a cultivated type of 

 a species of the Zizyphus, closely allied to the Jujube, from which the 

 celebrated Jujube Paste is manufactured, and has been developed to a 

 high condition of perfection in China since remote times. The occurrence 

 of three species of wild Zizyphus in the arid regions of southern Califor- 

 na, Arizona And Texas leads to the belief that this very delicious fruit 

 may be successfully grown in the arid regions of the southwest. Seeds 

 of one of these wild species discovered growing in abundance in the 

 canons of the San Jacinto range have been collected for the purpose of 

 growing nursery stocks, and our agricultural explorers are in quest of 

 the choice varieties in the hill countr}^ of China. 



A leguminous tree, closely allied to the mesquit trees, so familiar to . 

 all frequenters of the arid southwestern valleys is the Carob, Ceratonia 

 siliqua, the tree bearing the strange food product called St. John's Bread, 

 the glutinous sugary pods of which are now imported in considerable 

 quantities and sold in several localities in the United States where gro- 

 cers must cater to the wants of Poles and Russian Mennonites. who use 

 them on the occasion of certain religious festivals. These pods, though 

 affording a very coarse and innutritions food for human beings, are very 

 nutritious and highly valued as a food for stock and are produced in 

 large quantities in many Mediterranean sections, but especially on the 



