The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1911-06-21
Magazine Repiew.
Risks His Life For New Foods.


| Frank n. Meyer, an American field ex.
| plorer, working under commission Of the
bureau Of plant industry Of the depart
ment OF agriculture, is to-day in lone
" land and before his mission is ended
he win pass through still lonelier lands.
His collecting journey began at st. Pet.
ersburg and ii viii end at some sea
coast port OF eastern China His trip
already has been successful enough to
make it worth much more than the mon
ey it has cost He has frozen and melt.
ed alternately as che attitudes have
changed he has encountered wild beasts
and men nearly as wild; he has scaled
glaciers and crossed chasms OF dizzy
/ ing depths; he has been the subject of
the always alert suspicious of govern
ment officials and Of strange peoples
jealous Of intrusions into their land
but he has found what be was sent for.
A plant hunterl Official and peasant
are accustomed to the coming OF hunt
ers OF wild beasts They understand
the lust Of killing and the desire for
danger which make men take long jour
ueys into strange places. But plant
hunterl--it seems to them the thinnest
pretense to hide some design on the
,4aaaa of Aha ,,n,saY,,,n.,,t ~, tha ,a,x
munity. The specimen bag must hold
some strange instrument Of destruction,
the more deadly because ii is unknown.
The experiences of botanists in the
eastern mountains, though with an add
ed element of real danger, are like those
OF the peaceful opera glass ornithologist
whose sanity is doubted and whose ar
rest is threatened by the country folk
because lie prefers to study the living
bird rather than to kin il, fill it with
cotton and arsenic, and TO pierce ii with
wires for mounting in painful and
grotesque attitude
Admittedly the expression falls with.
in the limits of what the obiectors call
the bromides, but ii is the desire of
David Fairchild, the agricultural explor-
err in charge, and of his fellow laborers
in field and capital, to make such des-
erts as the United States has to bios
som like the rose or, if not the rose,
the pear, the apple, the orange, the
pomegranate or the olive, The nature
of much of the land which is under
search to-day for plant treasures is
stony and forbidding, places apparently
for the thistle and the thorn, and it
would appear that he who looks for
fruitage there must be one who thinks
yea the answer to the question of scrip
tnre, and that grapes may be gathered
of thorns and figs of thistles.
The explorer now in the Himalaya
mountains carries in his head botani-
cal chart OF the United States, He finds
species of plant useful or ornamental,
or variety of species, and by refer
enee to the mental map he knows in.
stantly what part of the United States
it has chance to flourish and to prove
a blessing He gathers with full knowl-
edge of the locality in which one day
Americans may sit under the shade OF
a Himalaya treee or gather fruit from a
Himalayan vine.
In the plant hunters head there is also
a weather map. He knows the see
tions of the United States where long
periods of drought would wither quickly
any form Of introduced vegetation whose
life is moisture. He knows the places
where the rainfall is apt to be excessive
aud he knows where there are shadow
and sunshine in about equal parts. His
Is work OF selection, and il can be said
that in large part the judgment OF the
plant finder has been justified ~ re-
sults.-From "PIant Hunter in the
Wild in July Technical World Maya
zine.