Miscellaneous. 



238 



[March 1908. 



until 1900 ; but to-day it is a living 

 question in the milling centres of the 

 north-west. It is a wheat for the dry 

 lands, where the ordinary kinds grow 

 poorly or not at all, and it yields so much 

 more per acre, and is so much sure a crop 

 that, even if it should not bring the 

 highest prices, it will pay better than 

 the less drouth-resistant species which 

 Western farmers have hitherto tried to 

 grow on the dry farm lands of the 

 Dakotas and Nebraska. 



Custom still fights the innovation of a 

 new flour, and there are people who 

 think our bread is in danger of being 

 deteriorated by the new introduction ; 

 but they are not the well-informed who 

 have tasted the full-flavoured durum 

 wheat breads of Spain or Italy who 

 realize the great and growing future of 

 macaroni as a food in this country. 

 American-made macaroni, prepared with 

 the best of the old American wheats, 

 cannot be compared with the delicate 

 product of a Gragnauo factory. But 

 with the culture of this durum wheat in 

 America a change is coming, and the 

 time may come when we shall ship 

 macaroni to Italy instead of importing 

 it at the rate of nearly $2,600,000 worth a 

 year. This innovation in the great 

 wheat industry has been the results of 

 the efforts of Mr. M. A. Carleton, who 

 waa sent to Russia as an agricultural 

 explorer of the Office of Plant Introduc- 

 tion in 1898 and 1900. The office has dis- 

 tributed thousands of bushels of the 

 durum wheat varieties gathered by him 

 from all the Mediterranean and South 

 Russian countries where it is grown. 



THB SMYRNA PIG. 



One of the most fascinating events in 

 the history of plant introduction was 

 the introduction of the Smyrna fig indus- 

 try. The Smyrna fig has always been 

 considered the finest fig in the world, 

 and beyond all competition ; so it was 

 natural that progressive Californians 

 should wish to see if they could not 

 grow it. Orchards were accordingly 

 started in 1880. They grew well, but the 

 crops of fruit they bore fell to the 

 ground when quite green, and it was 

 evident that something was lacking to 

 make the industry a success. A study of 

 fig culture in Smyrna was made, and it 

 was discovered that a process _ called 

 caprification was necessary. This con- 

 sisted in hanging in the trees of the true 

 Smyrna fig the young fruits of another 

 variety of figs that are not edible, but 

 which contaic thousands of microscopic 

 wasp-like insects, called BLastophaga. 

 These insects creep out of the caprifigs 

 just at the time when the Smyrna figs 

 are in bloom, and, crawling into the 

 latter, they fertilize the hundreds of 



small flowers of which the fig is com- 

 posed, and, instead of dropping off like 

 unfertilized flowers, th>; Smyrna figs 

 grow and ripen. 



The caprifigs were accordingly im- 

 ported as cuttings, but again the owner 

 was disappointed when the trees bore, 

 for it was discovered that they had left 

 their tiny insects behind and were worth- 

 less. A final attempt was made through 

 the combined efforts of the entomologist 

 of the Department of Agriculture and 

 Mr. W. T. Swingle, of the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry, and, in 1899, after nine- 

 teen years of effort, Mr. Rc ding's 

 orchard of Smyrna figs was established. 

 It is still the largest in this country and 

 has been yielding large crops of delicious 

 fruit. Sixty-five tons was the output for 

 1903, and though in its infancy the Cali- 

 fornia Smyrna fig industry is already 

 supplying a portion of the fig now sold 

 in our markets, and these are being put 

 up with a cleanliness unknown in their 

 native land. 



JAPANESE RICE. 



History tells us that the first rice in 

 this country was introduced into the 

 Carolinas in 1695 by the captain of a brig 

 from Madagascar, who gave some seed 

 to Governor Smith and his friends to 

 experiment with, and the result has 

 been an important industry. The rices 

 which chance introduction had brought 

 in were looked upon as the finest in 

 quality in the world and were exported 

 to Europe ; but, with the call for a white 

 and a more polished product than the 

 haud-threshed rice of plantation days, 

 came machine-polished rice, and the 

 centre of the rice industry was trans- 

 ferred to Louisiana and Texas by the 

 discovery of artesian wells in those 

 States. The machine-polished rice that 

 we buy in this country to-day is, as every 

 one knows, a truly beautiful thing to 

 look at, but as tasteless as the paste that 

 a paperhauger brushes on his rolls of 

 wall paper. The leather rollers of the 

 machine not only rub off all the fine 

 outer layer of nutritious matter, and 

 with it the part that gives flavour to 

 the kernels, but they often break the 

 long, slender grains that characterize 

 the famous Carolina golden rice. This 

 breakage is so great that the Louisiana 

 growers begged for assistance, and the 

 new Office of Plant Introduction sent 

 Dr. S A. Knapp to Japan in search of a 

 short-kerneled variety that would not 

 break in the milling process. To-day Dr. 

 Kuapp declares that one-half of all the 

 rice grown in Louisiana and Texas is the 

 Kiushu rice that had its origin in the 

 introduction made in 1899. This new 

 rice has reduced the breakage from 40 

 per cent, to 10 per cent,, and has at the 



