698 
better than I had feared o.r hoped. We were met here by a 
delegation from the chief date village, fine menn, who 
wanted to take us on to their town at once, but I prefer 
to rest till tomorrow. The great trade date is the Siady, 
as they pronounce it, which goes by caravan to "rail end" 
at Kharga. There are a few trees of Sultany reported but 
said to be very old and I can as yet learn of no young 
ones. Will send what fortune later. 
What do you think of Hce on the heaviest red adobe 
land, too strong in salt and alkali for barley? Some of 
it is now turning brown; harvest in November. It is said 
to have been here from Roman times. This looks to me to 
be the biggest find of the trip. I am arranging for a 
camel load of the new grain to be sent to the rail end. 
Expect vo start back in four or five days, when I shall 
hope to have found Sultany offshoots." 
China. Pekin. Mr. Frank N. Meyer, agricultural ex- 
plorer, writes September 16: "Last Sunday night (Sept. 14) 
I returned here to Peking from an extended journey into 
the mountainous regions, West and N. W. of Peking, where I 
have been studying up the tree and shrub flora of the 
Hsiao Wui tai shan, the different varieties of persimmons, 
some cherry plantations and walnut and chestnut trees. As 
regards collecting herbarium material in Hsiao Wu tai 
shan, I have been quite successful, I think, for I have 
over 80 sp. of woody plants in my possession now. In so far 
as the persimmon question is concerned I have not been 
very lucky, for we have a very bad persimmon year here 
around Peking. Sometimes trees haven't a single fruit on 
them. The Chinese say that the early rains ruined the 
flowers and no fruit was set. One grower stated there 
were such things as trees which bore either exceedingly 
little or even no fruit at all (in other words male 
trees). He stated however that the Chinese rebudded such 
trees as soon as they found out such facts. About the 
equatorial incision being closer to the peduncle or far- 
ther away from it, we were told that really no attention 
was being paid to it by anybody. The big majority of 
fruits (Tamopans) that I have seen however seem to have 
the incision closer to the peduncle than in the middle of 
the fruit. Of the cherries I have taken photos of the 
trees and collected herbarium material, that is of the 
sweet cherries; of the real bush-cherry {Prwius tomen- 
tosa) I have not seen a single good plantation on this 
trip. One finds it extremely difficult to obtain correct 
information regarding minor matters in fruits. The one 
Chinaman knows less than the other. The fruit dealers too 
