The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-08-29

BABY Wncats Which Mean Millions
New Grains For the Dry lands
and Rice For the Wet-A.an-
cllyirian NilIets and Siberian Sorg-
m!n,s-Thc New Seeds OF One
Wcck-Choicc Fruits from China
-ieg>immons as Big as Basebssli'
and Jujt:bcs Like DatcS-SOnictilin@
About Frank Meyer and His ASiatic
Finds.
Copyright, 1911, by Frank G.. Car
WAsHINGToN. D. G.
Uncle sam IS running a great ma
trinonjal bureau. He makes mar
riagcs by the hundreds month. and
adds To his children by the tens Of
thousands a year. He not only mar
ries those within his own boundaries,
Government expense far aud wide
over the world searching out new
brides and grOOms to mate with them.
These marriages. however, are not
of men and women, but Of plants.
It is strange TO think Of plants mar
ryinS, but the vegeta bic world is male
and female. 1t is made up of such
Matches and from them are coming
forth new and valuable plant chill
dren each day. Every one has heard
Of Luther Burbank, who married the
plum to the apricot and made the
pIumCOt. who made the white black
berry out of the brunette and q cross
and who took the Oy-eyed daisy and
by uniting it with other varieties
created the great Shasta flower, which
IS many times larger The ASricll-
tural Department has a half dozen
men Who have done as much original
work as Luther Burbank, and there
are scores of others scattered over the
country, at our State and National
,~,i,.>
producing grains and fruits which
will add enormously to our National
wealth.
Oar New Baby NInats.
Take the matter Of wheat. The
agricultural matchmakers of Min
ncsota have done wonders in their
marriages Of those servants of man.
They have crossed the various Wheats,
and they have now 1000 hybrid
babies which they are testing They
nave produced one offspring which
mas been already scattered over L.
100000 acres, and another which is
being planted upon 100000. Some
OF the new Wheats are showing gains
of from two to five bushels per acre
forty-scven bushels. The old wheats
beside them have been giving only
fifteen or twenty. If the wheat crop
OF the United States could be in
creased only three bushels per acre
1t would add at least $10O,0O0,00O per
year to our receipts from that source
The grains used in producing these
hybrids have pedigrees dating far
back into history. They have been
collected from all parts Of the world
among the Wheats now used are some
sent by Mr. AronSon from Palestine e
lie mas discovered there wild Whea
whose ancestors are supposed to have
grown in the Garden Of Eden. anC
there is another wheat which has
Deen found in the tomb of an Egyp
tan mummy more than 5000 years
Old
Among the new varieties which WE
are nov planting is that brought il
from the dry lands bordering the
Sahara III southern Algeria. This i
the durum or macaroni wheat Which
M. a. Carleton one of our agriculture
explorers, sent to be tested upon th'
semi-arid lands of our Middle West
1t was tried in kansas, Nebraska an(
Texas, and the first crop was seventy
I'VE thousand bushels. That wa
elShtt or nine years ago. The secon(
crop was over a million, and We ar
now raising fifty million bushels
about one-half Of which is eXporte'
TO Europe and some to the very coun
Try whence the wheat came. Tha
wheat all comes from land which
would not grow wheat before.
New Grains For the Farmer.
Similar experiments are being mad
by our experts of the Agriculture
Department in almost every grain
varieties of the old grains are beinl
gathered from all over the world ant
brought here for testing and uniting