Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1907-01-04
EV DOOR OPENS TOFARMERS
MILLIONS OF ACRES WASTED AN
NUALLY BY cARELEsSNESS.


IL foreign explorations in the United
states Department Of Agriculture.
Thoroughly at home in natures great
laboratory, which he finds fitted up
and open for work in every bit OF
agricultural land in the whole worlS
Nr. Fairchild is enthusiastically Ia
boring to help supply the demand for
lew crops, that is coming from the
weakening of farmers to the posslDll-
ties of their SOIL In the Worlds
Work, Mr.. Fairchild Says
sThere are millions of acres of
and sewn every year with the wrong
.rops, causing millions of 1nneces-
larry crop failures, and there are mil
lions of acres lying idle for want
IF the proper plant cultures for them.
ignorance regarding other crops than
hose grown rather than an unrea-
soning conversation, is what has
made the farmer plant cotton aad
sorn in places where he cac-,l have
Town alfalfa or cultivated soy beans.
ince which has cost the country bill
ions of dollars, but the blame is not
his. The means have not been given
him and his seclusion until decade
>r two ago has prevented his get
ing the information about new crops
Ind the seeds to experiment with.
when the New England farmer
found it had ceased to be profitable
% grow wheat because Of competition
rom the great plains, it would have
been worth the country's while to
have spent large sums in search for
/ crop to take its place. The Caro-
ina rice planters have abandoned
thousands of acres of rice fields be-
cause the Louisiana and Texas plant
srs can grow the crop more cheaply,
and the discovery Of a substitute will
De worth millions annually to the re-
tion."
1t was Mr. M. A. Carleton, like
Mr.. Fairchild an agricultural ex-
plorer, who brought to the knowledge
of American wheat growers, a few
years ago, a fact that has been OF
rast financial profit to them, viz,
hat a species of wheat, Of which they
knew nothing and from which bread
Gould be made that man. people
thought the best in the word was
grown in another part of the world.
Moreover, that this wheat would grow
IN semi-arid land, where ordinary
wheat failed, would yield four bush
Els more to the acre and would not
BE affected by the diseases which
preyed upon the kinds they had been
accustomed to. Last year alone this
aew wheat-the Observation-Disclosures
throughout the Northwest by the De-
partment of Agriculture, yielded the
farmers who. grew it a net income
Of 81 100000. Since 1899 it has earn
ed for the farmers of America 49,
700 900.
Rice was the first irrigated crop
10 be grown in this country. Strange
As it may seem, the rice-growers paid
40 heed to the remarkable varieties
grown so successfully in many parts
Of the Orient, but continued to plant
the kind they first tried. Now, it
s estimated that 100000 was an
aually lost by the rice planters of
Louisiana and Texas alone because
they kept on growing the long-kernel
| led kind, that breaks in milling, in
stead of importing from Japan the
short-kernelled sort. The Office OF
Plant Introduction has introduced
short-kernelled rice, thus saving mil
lions to the rice planters of this coun-
try
Not 2 per cent Of the edible plants
of the world are known or grown by
American farmers. Not only so, but
the varieties that are possible from
cross-fertilizatiOn no man can pre-
dict. In this realm of producing new
forms of DEMONSTRATING food and OF
encouraging the farmers of our coIn
try to experiment along this line,
the Office of Plant Introduction is
meeting with great success.
Thousands of farmers have al.
ready entered the field of plant breed
ing, and not a mail passes through
the Office of Plant Introduction with
out a request in it for some new
plant to be used by an enthusiast in
the creating of new or the improv
ing of an old farm or garden crop
plants like the asparagus but
easier to grow and a third more pro
ductive, South American wild celery
to cross on the American varieties
! improved horseradiSh that yields 8
| ton or more to the acre, new crea
| tons in oranges that combine the
hardness of thorny Japanese hedge
plant with the fruiting character OF
the naval orange of California, an as
paragus that shall have blended in
the characteristics of the South Afri-
can species with the Mediterranean
Sicily, new breeds of pears which
shall combine the sweetness of the
Seckel with the resistance to dis
ease of the Chinese sand pear, new
peaches that will not rot on the trees
by the millions of bushels as many
varieties do now when the season is
a moist one, new cover crops FOL
the lawns in the arid Southwest, new
fodder grasses that have been sc
improved by selection that they yield
fifteen per cent more forage than the
ordinary kinds; these are some o.
the host of new possibilities upor
which the experts of the Government
and the thousands of experimenters
over the country are at work
THE AMERICAN PASSION.