Search for New Crops 1770-1840


Carolina should undertake the introduction of the olive and
offered his services to William Drayton in securing plants. He had
a number of olive plants sent from France in 1789-90 for South
Carolina and Georgia.
 Miscellaneous Introductions-The search for suitable pasture
and cover crops in the South is an old one. In 1786 Jefferson sent
Drayton seeds of the sulla of Malta, or Spanish St. Foin, a legume
belonging to the same family as clover and alfalfa. In a letter to
the editor of the American Farmer of May 2, 1820, Jefferson wrote
that the consul at Leghorn, Italy, had sent him some of the seed,
Italian clover, which was arousing some interest at that time.
He considered it the same as the sainfoin grown in the Mediter-
ranean region. Thirty-five years before, Jefferson had procured
some of the clover seed from Malta and sent it to the Agricultural
Society of South Carolina. They found it less advantageous than
the Guinea grass, and did not pursue its culture.
 Jefferson sent a parcel of acorns from the cork oak to South
Carolina in 1787. No successful plantings came from these seed
which were probably received in a non-viable condition, but
Jefferson continued his efforts to introduce cork for another
forty years. In 1803 he sent to Europe for grains of a wheat said
to withstand the attacks of the Hessian fly.' However the wheat
he received later that year and distributed among his friends
never proved equal to this requirement.

 WORK OF AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES
 Agricultural societies during the nineteenth century performed
much the same functions for agriculture that Federal and state
governments later did in communicating agricultural information
to each other and exchanging seeds and plants. The first agricul-
tural periodical published in the United States, the Agricultural
Museum, devoted much space to the work of agricultural societies.
Activities of the Columbian Agricultural Society of Washington
and the Berkshire Agricultural Society of Massachusetts were fre-
quently reported upon. As the earliest recognition of Russian
wheats, the Agricultural Museum noted in July, 1811, that Cas-

 1This tiny midge or fly is very destructive to wheat in the eastern United
States. Wheat growers in the nineteenth century were continually searching either
for wheat varieties that would resist its ravages or the means to prevent its
attacks. It is said to have been brought to America in the straw used for horse
feed during the Revolution by the Hessian mercenaries of George III.