THE CHINESE JUJUBE. 3 
THE CHINESE JUJUBE IN THE UNITED STATES. 
Long before Meyer sent to this country the improved large-fruited 
varieties from China, there had been numerous introductions into 
the United States of seedling varieties of jujube. These intro- 
ductions go back even beyond the date of the establishment of the 
Department of Agriculture. In a portion of the report of the Com- 
, missioner of Patents relating to agriculture for the year 1855 (4-), 
I there is an extract from the correspondence of Robert Chisolm, of 
Beaufort, S. C. : " In 1837," he writes, " while traveling in the 
south of Europe, I was induced to purchase some plants of the jujube, 
which I have cultivated ever since, and as this shrub suckers freely 
I have considerably increased my stock, though to nothing like the 
extent I might have done had I been disposed." 
Mr. Chisolm, in a letter to the Southern Cultivator dated July 
29, 1851 (3), recommended the jujube to southern gardeners and 
planters, remarking : " I could send some of the seeds by mail to per- 
sons applying soon, in quantities proportioned to the number of 
applicants." 
The Patent Office distributed seeds of the jujube in 1854 (i), 
principally in the Middle and Southern States. In the Agri- 
cultural Report for 1858 (12) we find " the jujube is just now 
beginning to be freely introduced into our nurseries and gardens." 
The nursery catalogue of P. J. Berckmans, of Augusta, Ga., for 
1861, lists the jujube. 
As an ornamental and hedge plant it attracted a good deal of in- 
terest during the seventies, as is shown by the literature of that time 
and the existence to-day in the Southern States of many trees 40 to 
50 years old. These trees were grown in Florida, Georgia, South 
Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and the District of Columbia, 
and as far north as Germantown, Pa. Around Charleston, S. C, 
there are a number of old trees, and natives of the city now 50 to 60 
years of age can remember eating the fruit when they were children. 
In Washington, D. C, in the grounds of the Department of Agri- 
culture, there is a jujube tree which was placed there in 1868. The 
jujube was introduced into California in 1876 by G. P. Rixford, at 
present of the Office of Crop Physiology and Breeding Investiga- 
tions of the Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department 
of Agriculture. 
From 1897 to 1908 the Department of Agriculture, through the 
Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, received numerous 
shipments of jujube seeds from explorers and others. The plants 
grown from these all produced small fruits, none of them being 
more than an inch in diameter. All these early introductions were 
made by means of seeds, and all produced seedling types of fruit, 
most of them being little more than skin and stone. 
With the establishment of the large-fruited varieties from the 
scions sent in by Meyer in 1908 and subsequent years, the interest 
in this fruit has been renewed. A total of 68 introductions were 
made by him. 
The seedling types attracted little or no attention as a commercial 
fruit, but, with the bearing of the larger fruited varieties, many 
horticulturists and others who have grown them see for the jujube 
a future as a commercial fruit and also for the home orchard in the 
drier sections of the Southern and Western States. 
