Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/64

Special efforts have been made to encourage the study of plants in the public schools. The Secretary argues that our system of elementary education leaves no impression on the child's mind of the importance, value, and usefulness of farm life, while in many ways he is brought early into contact with facts pointing to the value of commercial life. He calls attention to the rapid advances made in agriculture along all lines, and notes the need for bright young men in this field, which he believes offers opportunities as great as in any other. The distribution of seed is being handled in such a way that encouragement of plant growing will be a feature of it in connection with public school work.

Under the head of new industries developed the Secretary enumerates, first, rice, of which, under the encouragement of the department, there has been enormously increased production in Louisiana and Texas. Preliminary estimates give the area devoted to rice in 1904 in these two states at 600,000 acres, and the crop will approximate 650,000,000 pounds. In reference to durum or macaroni wheat the success attending its introduction continues unabated. Probably no less than 14,000,000 bushels of such wheats will be grown this year. The durum wheats are now being handled without difficulty by many millers. These wheats have been found valuable for bread and can be grown successfully where many other crops fail. Efforts are also being made to introduce the raw material for the manufacture of fine mattings.

In regard to the sugar beet the chief effort of the department has been to effect improvement in the seed and to study the diseases with a view to the discovery of remedies. Strains of pedigreed seed are being established in New York, Michigan, Utah, and Washington, having already assumed commercial importance in the last two states. It seems to be a question of but a few years when the entire 5,000,000 pounds used in the United States will be produced at home. American-grown seed has produced beets testing as high as 24 per cent, and the average in all beets tested from American-grown seed in 1903 was 15.8. The average percentage in all beets grown in the United States is but a little over 11 per cent. During the season of 1904, 14,000 pounds of American-grown seed were distributed by the department for testing in comparison with imported seed. The factories also bought 34,500 pounds of American-grown seed. Interesting experiments in fertilizing were conducted, one in particular showing the difference of over twenty dollars per acre as the result of fertilizing with nitrate of soda.

In the matter of developing sugar-beet seeds with single germs, which would greatly diminish the labor of thinning, the Bureau work has been very satisfactory.

Early oranges secured as a result of crossing the sweet orange with the hardy Japanese orange are now ready to distribute, and this work will be inaugurated the coming winter. The oranges are valuable for marmelades and may be grown in nearly all the Southern States. Other citrous fruit developed from the investigations of the Bureau of Plant Industry, such as the tangelo, a cross between the tangerine and the pomelo, promise to be exceedingly valuable.

As heretofore, investigation in American tea production has been continued in cooperation with Dr C. L. Shepard,