Federal Promotion of Crops


duces the terrible borer worm into Louisiana." The Patent Office
reported in 1857 that the cuttings were thriving and were expected
to compensate amply for the introduction.
 Glover, who procured the canes, came to America from England
 in 1836 to engage in agricultural experiments. He eventually be-
 came an entomologist in the Department of Agriculture and later
 taught at Maryland Agricultural College. His importation of
 additional cane borers into Louisiana is a commentary upon the
 rudimentary state of entomology and plant quarantine in his day.

 DIPLOMATIC ASSISTANCE
 Diplomatic officials also were called upon to procure plant
introductions while residing in foreign countries. The many
separate instances of such assistance do not tell a connected story.
But they do show the devotion of many of the consuls to the im-
provement of national agriculture, and indicate that the Patent
Office never expected to operate without the consuls' support.
 In 1849, John Davis, the consul at Canton, China, sent seeds to
America. These had been given to him by S. Wells Williams, a
prominent missionary and linguist, who later served as interpreter
for the Perry expedition to Japan. Williams obtained this supply
from another missionary who in turn had received them from
a Chinese physician. Davis sent a second box of seeds to the Patent
Office in June of 1849 which he had also received through Wil-
liams. During the summer and autumn of that year, Williams con-
tinued to gather seeds for the Patent Office, including Japanese
persimmon, olive, watermelon, and muskmelon seeds.

 THE IRISH POTATO
 An American consul at Panama in 1851 made an enormous
contribution to the agricultural wealth of the United States, prob-
ably without suspecting the significance of his act. This consul,
whose name is not known, sent a small quantity of potatoes from
South America, the original home of the "Irish potato," to the
Reverend Chauncey Goodrich, of Utica, New York.
 Goodrich's interest in potato breeding sprang from the wide-
spread want and suffering in Europe and the crop failures in
America due to the severe epidemic of potato rot during 1843-47.
He attributed the blight to long-continued asexual propagation,
which he thought had weakened the vigor and disease resistance