Search for New Crops 1770-1840


Henry Perrine, physician and plant enthusiast. His role was that
of an agricultural pioneer working for the development of the
newly-acquired Territory of Florida. Perrine's work came at a
time when new crops were needed to diversify and bolster the
agriculture of the South-before the Federal Congress had begun
to bureaucratize this work in 1839.
 Perrine's interest in the introduction of tropical plants began
while he was in Cuba in 1826 recuperating from an illness. Here
he observed agricultural practices, compiled statistics, and drew
some favorable conclusions about the prospects of tropical agri-
culture in Florida. When Perrine was appointed the United States
consul to Campeche, Mexico, in 1827, he began an intensive
campaign to export Mexican plants, especially the fiber-producing
agaves.
 He gave unstintingly of his services as a doctor to the Mexicans,
hoping to persuade them to part with their jealously-guarded
seeds and plants. Although the natives appreciated Perrine's help
during epidemics of yellow fever and cholera, they repeatedly
defeated his efforts to ship live plants or seeds out of Mexico. The
farmers disliked losing a valuable market for their crops by assist-
ing in the development of a rival crop industry abroad. Often the
seeds were reported either not ready to gather or already lost.
Transportation of plants was delayed so that they died on the
way out of the country. When plants did reach the United States,
frequently there were no facilities for their care.
 Perrine wrote letters to the newspapers in an attempt to interest
the public in the cultivation of tropical plants. He made experi-
mental shipments of the century plant (Agave americana) and
other plants to friends in New York and New Orleans.
 Perrine hoped to obtain a land grant from Congress, or to get per-
mission to purchase land in Florida and there set up an experi-
mental farm for tropical plants and seeds. He expected the results
of his farm would extend the cultivation of tropical plants north-
wards, and hoped to find some profitable crops that would attract
settlers to Florida. His plan was based upon the belief, common at
that time, that tropical plants could be gradually acclimated to
the colder temperatures of the north. Such plants, Perrine thought,
would utilize the sterile, swampy, pestilential lands of southern
Florida. What the soil lacked, he explained, the air and moisture
would supply to the plants he sought to cultivate. Perrine felt
that this combination would be so successful that in a few years