Abstract of an address on 'plant breeding in the United States Department of Agriculture' / by Erwin F. Smith.

  • Smith, Erwin F. (Erwin Frink), 1854-1927.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Abstract of an address on 'plant breeding in the United States Department of Agriculture' / by Erwin F. Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    KEIHfKT f)F THK CONFEKENTE (>N (iENEl’lCS. ao4 used for truck crops and other purposes, the orchardists who were not entirely discouraged going farther south to begin over again. Mr. Walter T. Swingle and Dr. Herbert J. Webber then set to work to obtain resistant varieties by crossing choice oranges and other citrous fruits sensitive to frost with the e.\tremely hardy Citrus trifoliata, which stands the winters well as far north as Washington,* and is occasionally cultivated as far north as Philadelphia, but which bears a small bitter, worthless fruit. They obtained many seedlings as a result of these crosses.t As soon as these had reached a size sufficient to furnish wood for budding, they were cut to pieces and budded upon the branches of older trees, in order to hasten their fruiting. In this way from many of these plants fruits were obtained at an early date, i.e. within three or four years. I saw and tasted many of these new fruits. Among the number, a dozen or more proved of much interest, the quality of the fruit in some cases being excellent. The variations among the seedlings of these trees, the second generation from the hybrid, are expected to be even more promising. A large number of these plants were also found to be (]uite resistant to cold, so that when they could not be used for their fruits they were still available as hedge plants. Some of the citrous fruits thus obtained can undoubtedly be cultivated as far north as the Carolinas. Besistance to Alkali and to Drought.—The Department’s work on the production of “alkali ’’-resistant plants is still under progress. We have thousands of acres in our West which are capable of producing a great quantity of food for man and beast were it not for the fact that these lands are more or less permeated by harmful alkaline and neutral salts. Many of these districts are scantily supplied with rainfall, and are cultivated by means of irrigation, which sometimes washes out the alkali and at other times washes it in, as has been your own experience in Egypt. The problem was to find plants of agricultural importance which would grow on the best of these alkali lands. It was discovered that some plants, for instance, the date palm, will flourish in soils that contain so much alkali that ordinary plants cannot grow at all, and with this in mind Mr. Walter T. Swingle has made several trips to the Sahara, and has imported for the Department large numbers of such palms, which are now growing satisfactorily in several places in Arizona and California. Many of these palms have already fruited heavily, yielding dates of excellent quality, and there is not the slightest doubt but that we shall within a few years be growing our own dates—at least all of the finer table varieties. The thought was that it might be possible also to find somewhere in the world alfalfa and other agricultural crops with a greater root resistance to alkaline water than that manifested by the ordinary varieties, the cultivation of which on these lands had failed. ith this end in view, the Department sent out - explorers to various jmrts of the Old World and also into our own alkaline tracts, the result being the discovery that there are certain types of leguminous and other plants * During the last twenty years I recall only one winter in which it was at all injured. I See Dr. Webber’s paper in the Report of llie Hybrid Conference, 1899, p. 1-8 et seq.~ Eo.