AGRICULTURAL EXPLORATIONS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12393, 14 December 1909, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL EXPLORATIONS.

An interesting phase of the work done

under his control is described in a recent issue of " Travel and Exploration " by Mr David Fairchild, chief of

the. United States Department of Agri^ culture. Increased knowledge of what can bo made of plants by scientific cultivation has taught the American farmer to try new things in the, hope of getting more out of his land. Wild plants hitherto regarded as valueless have become useful for breeding purposes, to furnish some characters, such as fruit without seed, or stem without spines. This has prompted the department to send out trained agricultural explorers, whose business it is to range over the prairies and forests of the world in search of living seeds and plants. Their " finds " are sent to the United States office of seed and plant introduction. To> it come every day scores of requests from farmers and experimenters, who want to try s?eds or plants which the explorers have sent from abroad. To it como, also, every, day. eight or ten shipments of living \ seeds or plants from the most out-of- j the-way parts of the world. One day, ; for example, will arrive a remarkable red corn from Peru, a. collection of wild fodder plants from Palestine. Chinese dater, from PekiiT, lrcc-heo fruit from the ' island of llonnn, half a ton1 of native Arabian alfalfa- peed from tho mouth of tho Tigris, and a. big sliinment of Egyptian clover seed from Cairn. Tn , each. Stat? are experiment -stations, to wlv'.ch a larsro part of the imports are dispatched, the rest coini to approver! private experimenters. To the question whether th-. Government is warranted by results in conducLiiip- all this exrtlorntion find oxnerim^ntinfr. Mr Fairchild replied: "If it is worth while to transform tho desert landseanps of the south-west, aiid dot them with young rls-iin mini plantations: if it is worth whilp to inovoflse +ho value of the wheat prop by 3.000.000" dollars throncth the f>itr"<Tuction of a whoaf- whiHi will <rrow farther west on tlie dry belt of the

great plains than any American wheat could grow; if it is worth while ..to find a hardier alfalfa Avhich winter will not kill in the north-west, and another which grows all the winter long in the mild weather of the south-vest, and yields that farmers 20 per cent, more hay; it is worth while to keep up and extend exploration for new plants. Thousands of plants fail where" one succeeds, but that one- success carries with it such earning power that it makes the investment pay." Mr Frank Meyer may be taken as an example of the department's trained explorers. He has been nearly three years in the Far East scouring Manchuria up to the eastern edge of Mongolia, parching the fruitgrowing province of Shantung, climbing the mountains of Korea, wanderingovert- the Jplains sotriJi of Shanghai, visiting the Yangtze valleg, and pushing his investigations north past Pekin to the neighbourhood of Vladivostock. Everywhere he has been on the look out. for new plants. Sometimes he has found them in the yard of a- missionary bungalow, and sometimes on a bleak mountain side, where wolves and tigers were so frequent that his native guides fled. Ho has bought seeds from a Chinese planter in a field of dry land rice, and from the owner of a cucumber hothouse. He has picked cones from sacred trees on the tomb of Confucius, travelled through miles of orchards during tho fruiting season, and returned in autumn to get bud sticks from trees he noted in full fruit. He has saved the seeds of delicious melons, and spent hours trying to convince the owners of a thin-shelled walnut that to sell a few scions from it would not bewitch its lifo away. It is barely two years.since Mr Mey'er's stream of unprohibitied Chinese immigrants began to arrive in America, and already the department is getting photographs of nursery rows planted with rapidly-growing plants of Chinese waiiiuts, Chinese chestnuts, seedless hardy Chinese persimmons, hardy wild apricots, broad-leaved Mongolian oaks, white-barked .pines earlyfruiting cherries, new forms of willows, Chinese dates, Chinese pistaches, Chinese grapes, Chinese peaches and plums, pears, and quinces, and a host of other new possibilities for the nurseryman. It has cost £2,700 to keep Mr Meyer at a, low salary for three years in these lands, and Mr Fairchild estimates that his work will pay.many hundred times that sum into thel'pockets of American farmers and J fruitgrowers.

The Government of the United States considers money spent on the encouragement of scientific agriculture to be money well spent. Tho Government of this Dominion, in the prosecution of a very necessary scheme of retrenchment, contemplates the practical closing down of the Moumohaki State Farm. The pruning-knife should be used judiciously. There is such a thing as extravagant economy. It is possible to bo a penny wise arid a pound foolish.