The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1907-08-23
Seed and Plant Distribution.
Appleton 5 Magazine


There are fifty of Us at homt
and abroad combing the world 70
crops-fruit, grain or plant. They
call US the bureau of seed and plan
introduction and distribution. W.
are backed up by a bureau of soil;
and experimentation at home, with
| doctors and pathologists to tenC
every delicate plant that grows. =
Is the work new?"
cold as Franklin's day, sir; Older
than our Department of Agricul-
ture. As Pennsylvania agent il
Europe, Franklin used to send home
mulberry cuttings and seed in 1770;
and our Consuls have done the same.
But there was no system about the
work until years ago, when Congress
gave us S20,000a year as vagabonds
with a mission otanizing Stan
legs, you might call US. The APP
preparation has since been enlarged
Does it pay? 1t cost $4,000 to
introduce sorghum, a crop now
worth $40, 100000 a year. Then
look at the durum wheat, unknown
in our market until 1900. 1t is a
dry land grain for the semi-arid
Western plains that will flourish
where another wheat would starve.
To get it, test and distribute it, cost
US perhaps 10000, while the crops
annual value is at least 80, 900, 900,
Same story with the naval
orange; japanese rice and BAN boo;
the Corsican citrOn, the Indian
mango, Bohemian horseradish, Ma
lay mangosteen, Mexican sisal, Ger
man brew barley, Spanish almonds,
French prunes, West Indian cassa-
va, hardy furnished oats and tur-
nips for Alaska's short summer,
Chinese mustard and Egyptian cot
ton. Over 4 900 novelties in three
years, ranging from the birdlime
bark and fishing rods Of Japan to
the heavy-scented jasmine of Ara
bia. -
You see, there are lots of gaps
in our economy. Connecticut tobac-
co growers want a vetch that will
leave nitrogen in their soil. If |
can find it, there is $40 an acre saved
on 5000 acres; $780, 900 a year, you
see, from one little weed.
The Northwest is asking us for
evergreen wind-breaks; the florists
for healthy Easter lilies; the South
for disease resisting cotton; Florida
wants vanilla, camphQr, morphine
and tropic fruits; the Southwest
anything that will defy drought
and akai; North Dakota a new flax
for her wilted areas.
We want one new crop for Caro-
inas' abandoned rice farms; an
other for unOccupied Georgian hills;
several for the queer conditions Of
Alaska, and mating rush to save
Japan imports worth IS, DOC, 900 a
year. An American has already
invented the machine for weaving
We want grain like the Russian pro-
so millet for arid or semi-arid re-
gions from North Dakota to Texas,
and for high altitude Of the Rockies.
Then look at the SIC, 900, 600 a
year we pay Mexico for sisal fiber,
to make thousands of miles of twine
for the use of our Western farmers
in their harvest fields. We ore GO
ing to see whether we can't grow
the sisal plant in Porto Rico, and
magnificent fruits like the Malay
mangosteen in Hawaii and the
canal zone. We've lots of work be-
fore US, and before me at the mo-
ment is the date question.
My colleague, W. I. Swingle,
was in the Sahara GASES in 1899,
besides visiting Egypt and Tunis.
He sent home shipments of date
palm suckers that throve so well in
the short hot seasons of our Cali
f0rnia and Arizona deserts that |
was asked TO come up the Persian
gulf to the dates own birthplace.
Next day the two men dropped
down the classic Tigris on a goat
skin raft, with the glass at lis de-
grees in the shade; everywhere were
vast palm forests, thick and dark
and still, irrigated by a world of
waterways, drawn off from the main
stream that flowed between banks
so low that Arabs sat and washed
pious hands in the sluggish current.
Twenty million date palms. One
orchard seventy miles long, from
below Mohammerah to above Kurna
on the Shat-el-Arab. Exports to
all the world of 100, 900, 900 pounds
each season.
Give me list of the finest va
rieties, said Fairchild to his friend
ly adviser that night and tell me
where the trees are. that | may get
cuttings