658 
"Ten years ago I found a hybrid blackberry raspberry 
growing wild. A wild cherry as large as any cultivated 
cherry. Made them into pies and they were splendid. Wild 
grape vines 60 feet long. Also an annual grape that dies 
down every year, and produces large bunches of wild grapes 
(wine color). This is a very valuable vine for all grape 
growing countries. I also know of several very valuable 
varieties of the spineless cactus, growing so naturally." 
VENEZUELA. Caracas. Mr. H. Pittier writes April 
5-13, as follows: "I have gotten information yesterday on 
a fruit they call Chirimo-rinon and which is said to be a 
cross between Annona cherimolia and A. squamosa. The 
prospects were certainly not good here at first. Fortu- 
nately President Gomez is a man of good sense and good 
will and I found also in several of his Secretaries and in 
Dr. Jahn a very strong help, so that to-day it looks as if 
things were coming my way. At my suggestion, they have 
abandoned the idea of spending half a million in erecting 
in the wilderness of Maracay, buildings for a problematic 
school. The farm there will be used for an Experimental 
breeding Station and at my suggestion they have asked the 
Bureau of Animal Industry to send a good cattle man, not a 
baby Veterinary surgeon, but an experienced breeder, to 
take charge of it. The position is a fine one for the 
right man. On the other hand, instead of a school, they 
will establish here in Caracas, a real agricultural 
station, taking as a start the existing embryonic Estacion 
agrohdmica. They will also have nurseries and a distri- 
butive center that will do more good than all the, theo- 
retical teaching in the world. I have had lectures started 
on agriculture, horticulture and gardening at both the 
Escuelas de Artes y Officios for men and women and in the 
latter they are giving the first steps towards the estab- 
lishment of a big garden which the girls will cultivate 
themselves under the direction of Mr. Miesse, the present 
chief of the Agronomic Station. The same thing will be 
done at the normal school for girls and I am expected to 
start a course of lectures there in a few days. Last but 
not least, I am going to give a lecture next Tuesday, to 
the farmers, on some important points in coffee culti- 
vation. You see, then, that since my last letter, there 
has been something doing, and that I have borne high the 
flag of the Agriculture Department." 
