Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1909-12-24
now the National Department of
Agriculture is Working to
Improve Conditions

rev people realize the vast
amount Of work that is being done
oy the national governments de.
partment of agriculture and the
agricultural colleges and expert.
ment stations to better the con.
dltions of the farmers fruit
growers and stockmen of the Unit.
ed States. AT all times men are
peing sent to various parts of the
world to seek for new plants new
fruits, new breeds of stock or
Kinds of trees that will help agri-
cultural conditions in this conn.
try.
Take our own agricultural col
lege here at Pullman for instance
1T IS importing wheats from the
drlest portions of Russia and from,
the highest attitudes of the world
and trying to acclimate them to
the various sections of Washing
ton, where climatic conditions
are similar to those in the coun-
tries from which they came. Var
letles of wheat, new to this coun.
try, but which have been grown
on the Steppes of Asiatic Russia
Tor centuries and withstand
drouth better than any variety
grown here, have been imported
and are being propogated at the
experiment station Fruits from
all parts of the world are being
brought here and tried to see if
they will grow and do we'll in our
C'nate and soil, and be an i'm
provement on those we have been
raising.
What the agricultural college
and experiment stations are do
ing in this line are only minea-
ture reproductions of what the
national government is doing for
agriculture. The following story
taken from the Worlds Work,
gives an idea of how the govern
ment is searching the uttermost
parts of the earth" to find plants
that will improve agricultural
conditions in the United States.
This article is written by Owen
Wilson and is well worth reading
and studying 1t follows:
One more district has been tax
en- out of the category of the
places "where no white man has
ever been"
Mr.. Frank N. Meyer of the
United States Department Of Ag-
riculture, travelling in search of
plants that might be valuable to
the American farmer, has taken
that distinction from the noun
famous region east of the Yalu
river in Northern Korea.
Mr.. Meyer began his three
years of travel in the east, in 1905.
Before he had finished he had been
as far south as Kiu-Kiang, on the
Yang-tze-kiang, as far north as
Khabarovsk, north of Manchuria,
and east and west from Ning-po
to Hankau. In the first year he
made a wide-sweeping circle into
central China and, although COM
paratively few Americans have
been overland from Picking to
Hankau, it is an easy journey
when judged in comparison with
Mr.. Meyers expedition of the
year after.
He left Shanghai by steamer for
Chi-fu and from there went to
Shan-hai-kuan, a place on the Chi
nese Eastern Railway about
third of the way from Tientsin to
Mukden. Hrere he found a species
of walnut with a shell so thin that
it can be broken between the fin
gers as easily as that of a peanut.
From Shan-hai-kuan he went down
by rail to Picking, where he spent
some months visiting gardens in
and around the city and examin-
ing the many kinds of fruit
and vegetables that were brought
into the city's market. Among
other things which he discovered
that promised to be useful in this
country, was a seedless, sweet per-
simmon, which grows in the val
ley of Ming tombs about forty
miles from the city. There are
persimmon trees a plenty in this
country now, but no one ever saw
any persimmons in a fruit mar
ket. They are a delicious fruit,
hut, when ripe, they become SO
soft that they will not stand ship
ment, and our persimmon trees
are useful chiefly to the Negroes IN
the South as places in which to
look for 'possum.
But the Peking persimmons are
different. They are larger thar
L..