The profession of agricultural exploration has been originated and developed by the Office of Plant Introduction. The first explorer, Mr. N. E.
Hansen, made an extended trip through Russia and the steppes of Siberia in search of hardy fruits and drought-resistant forage plants, the result being the introduction of the Turkestan alfalfa plants. Mr.
W. T. Swingle, on two separate trips, explored the oases of the Sahara for the best sorts of date palms, and unearthed a host of new and interesting forage and fruit plants in Algeria, with many of which various experimenters are now at work ; he studied and perfected the best method of sending over the caprifying insect that has since made Smyra fig culture a success in California, and started investigations of the pistachio industry in Sicily and Asia Minor, besides calling the attention of olive-growers to the dry-land olive culture of Tunis. Mr. C. S. Scofield spent a summer in Algeria collecting the seeds of a lot of promising legumi nous plants that are now attracting interest as new fodder plants in California. At the same time he secured the best of the Kabili fig varieties that are now growing in the same state. The two Russian expeditions of Mr. M. A. Carleton were made in search of cereals that would resist the rust and the extreme droughts of the great western plains, and the tons of seed wheat that were dis tributed as the result of his trips have led to the establishment of the durum wheat industry in the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas, and that is now attracting the atten tion of the Californians as a possible solution of their serious wheat prob lem. Mr. E. A. Bessey made a journey through the Caucasus after hardy grapes and cherries, and went into Turkestan for sand - binding plants and alfalfas. Dr. S. A. Knapp was sent twice to the Orient to study the rice varieties of those great rice - growing countries, and introduced among other things the Kiushu rice that has been referred to. Mr. T. H. Kearney has made two explorations of the north coast of Africa, the first to select strains of the best Egyptian cotton (Figs. 100, 101), the second to make a collection of the many important dates that grow in the oases of southern Tunis. He has given the first account by a trained agriculturist of the date-palm industry written on the ground at the time of ripening of the fruit. Mr. 0. W. Bar rett, during the time he was stationed at Porto Rico, was sent to other of the West Indian islands, and he has introduced a number of valuable plants into the tropical territory there, notably varieties of the cacao and the yautia, the root crop already men tioned, the arracacha of Venezuela and others. The
discovery by Mr. P. H. Rolfs that the vanilla can be fruited in Florida led to his recent trip to Mexico to study the vanilla industry of eastern Mexico, and resulted in the importation of a number of varieties of this valuable plant to serve as experi mental material for his researches. Mr. Rolfs also made a trip to Jamaica to study the cassava in dustry, and there made a collection of cassava varieties which is now established in Florida.
A short investigation of the Alpine trial gardens of Austria was made last summer by Mr. Edgar Brown, who also secured for trial the Ladino clover of the irrigated valley of the Po. At the present time Mr. Frank N. Meyer, agricultural explorer of the Office, is in northern China, and from this region he is sending, week by week, cions and seeds of hardy fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and orna mental plants that may be expected to have an important bearing on the agricultural industries of the Atlantic and middle western states.
The government responsibility in plant introduction.
It will be evident from what has been said that the aims of this Office are not at all identical with those of such a wonderful botanic garden as that of Kew, Berlin, or New York. It does not main tain a collection of living plants, whether of practical value or not, but its funds are spent in importing for the use of experimenters throughout the country material with which they can work. Scarcely a day passes without some request being received for seed which is not carried by any seeds man in the country. A potato-breeder in Vermont wants the new Solanum Conimersonii from the wet lands in Uruguay to hybridize with the ordinary potato ; a settler in southern Texas wants to try bamboos on the Rio Grande ; the representative of a land-development company on the Sacramento wants to plant the Egyptian horse-bean for a green manure crop; the Experiment Station of Hawaii wants wine-grape varieties introduced into the islands; and the director of the Alaska Experiment Station asks for North Swedish grains and vege tables for the Klondyke.