Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1911-06-30
s1.5o PER ANNun.
Risks His Life For New Foods.

Risks His Life For New Foods.
Frank N. Meyer an American field
explorer, working under commission
of the Bureau of Plant Industry of
the Department Of Agriculture, Is
today in lonely land and before his
is ended he will pass through
still lonelier lands. His collecting
journey began at st. Petersburg and
1t will end at some sea coast port OF
Eastern China. His trip already has
been successful enough to make 1t
worth much more than the money 1t
has cost He has frozen and melted
alternately as the attitudes have
changed; he has encountered wild
beasts and men nearly as Wild; mo hss
scaled glaciers and crossed chasms Of
dizzying depths; he has been the sub
ject of the always alert suspicious Of
government officials and OF strange
people of intrusions into their land--
but he has found what he was sent
for.
A plant hunter! Official and pea
SAINT are accustomed to the coming of
hunters of wild beasts. They under
stand the lust of killing and the de-
sire for danger which make men take
long journeys into strange places. But
plant hunterl-it seems to them
the thinnest pretense to hide some
design on the peace Of the govern
ment or the community. The speci-
men bag must hold some strange In
strument of destruction, the more
deadly because it is unknown. The
experiences of botanists In the East
ern mountains, though with an added
element of real danger, are like those
OF the peaceful opera glass ornitholo-
gist whose sanity is doubted and
whose arrest is threatened by the
country folk because he prefers to
study the living bird rather than to
kill it, fill it with cotton and arsenic,
and to pierce 1t with wires for mount
ing in painful and grotesque attitude.
Admittedly the expressive falls
within the limits OF what the object
ors call the bromides, but it Is the
desire of David Fairchild, the Agri-
cultural Explorer in Charge, and of
his fellow laborers In field and Capital,
to make such deserts as the United
States has to blossom like the rose or,
II 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 today for
plant treasures is stony and forbidd-
ing 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 ans
wer to the question Of Scripture, and
that grapes may be gathered Of
thorns and figs Of thistles.
The explorer now In the Himalaya
Mountains carries In his head bot
anical chart OF the United States. He
finds a species OF plant useful or
ornamental, or a variety Of "a species,
and by reference to the mental map
he knows instantly In what part Of
the United States 1t has chance to
flourish and to prove blessing. He
gathers with full knowledge OF the
locality in which one day Americans
may sit under the shade OF Hima-
laya tree or gather fruit from Hima-
layan vine.
In the plant hunters head there Is
also a weather map. He knows the
sections Of the United States where
long periods Of drought would wither
quickly any form of introduced veget-
alton whose life Is moisture. He
knows the places where the rainfall Is
apt to be excessive and he knows
where there are shadow and sunshine
in about equal parts. His is a work OF
selection, and it can be said that In
large parts the Judgment OF the plant
finder has been justified by results.
From "Plant Hunter in the Wilds, +"
in July Technical World Magazine.
The Lucas Medicine Company that
sold medicine and their patrons here