The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-09-15

! eminent to build up the Office OF
Seed and Plant Introduction, where
all the things sent in by explorers are
received. and from which they are
sent out again through the country.
To this Office every day
scores of requests from eXperimenters
who want to try seeds or plants
which the explorers have sent in from
abroad, and to this Office come in
every day from eight to ten shipments
of living seeds of plants from the
most out-of-the-way parts of the
world.
To-day arrive a remarkable red
corn from Peru, a collection of wild
fodder plants from Palestine, some
Chinese dates from Pekin, Chinese
litchi fruit from the Island of Ho-
nan, a half ton of seed of the native
Arabian alfalfa from the mouth OF
the Tigris, and a big shipment of
Egyptian clover seed from Cairo. The
| requests have come for these things
already, and as oon as the seeds are
cleaned and the plants are inspected
for diseases and pronounced healthy,
they will be sent on their way to the
different parts of the country.
There are in each State expert
ment stations with corps of men who
are paid to try such things, and to
these State stations a great many of
the imports go; but not all. for any
man who shows that he is able to
take care of the new things, and is,
in short, an experimenter, is entitled
to the governments encouragement
and assistance.
To change the crops of the coun-
try, to encourage the farmer who has
always grown corn to try something
| else when corn fails, is part OF the
duty Of this Office.
The Necessary Years.
But it must not be thought that
the game of agricultural exploration
is quick in getting results. Plants
take time to grow, and it takes time
to teach people how to grow them.
| Often half a lifetime may pass be-
fore the chosen plant which an e1-
| plorer predicts will be a great sue
cess has become really a great crop.
But where many plants are picked
out, there are sure to be some which
will reward the explorer early,
and others which will give him
a very delightful glow of sat-
isfaction in his old age. And
there are few pleasures that are
more enduring than the ones that
come to the man who first introduced
a new plant into his country, even if
the people who are dependent on it
for their living have forgotten that
he did it.
Agricultural exploration is q pro-
~fession, and although any one may
play at it, few have the training to
engage in it successfully.
More is necessary than merely to
pack a bag and board a steamer for
somewhere. The explorer must know
what his country wants, and he must
know this so intimately that when,
as some mountainside flashes past the
a window and his eye catches 4
peach-tree in bloom. and it is late for
peaches to bloom, his mind will re-
spond with the thought that perhaps
this foreign peach may bloom so late
at home that it will escape the late
spring frosts.
He must know not only the pre-
scribed area of some local region, but
must have a general knowledge of all
the important crops of the country
if he would travel in many lands, for
there are few things from Italy that
will grow in Maine. and there are not
many plants in Sweden which will
do well in Florida. Then, too, there
are ways to travel that the ordinary
tourist does not find out about. The
guide-books do not lead one into the
unbeaten paths of the explorer, and
the unframed man will not find out
quickly which are the promising ones
He must have a good idea of eli
mate, or else he will make the COM
mon mistake of thinking the climate
of Maine is much like the climate of
the Dakotas, or that places in the
same latitude must have the same eli
matte conditions, or that South Afri-
ca, with its perpetual summer, is like
California.
Unless he Is a linguist, he will be
dependent on those Idistorters of
facts, guides and interpreters. and
be led into all kinds of errors; but
above all, the greatest obstacle which
the would-be explorer meets with Is
when he actually finds something
which he wants to send home, and
discovers that he does not know how
to get it there. Almost everything
has seeds, one would think, but it
is surprising how few weeks in the
year there are during which one can
gather them. And if the visit to this
inaccessible region happens to be
just before or just after the seeding
time, what is to be done?
In some cases it is necessary for
the explorer to retrace his steps; in
others a knowledge Of how to propa-
gate plants solves the problem. A
slip, a slender branch, a root, an un-
derground stem, perhaps. will often
do quite as well as a seed. 1t can be
taken at any time, and if properly
packed in damp moss or wrapped in
good tough wrapping-paper will reach
home safely.
But above some of these necessary