America's Crop Heritage


 Many of the trees distributed by Saunders did so well that
nurserymen imported other kinds from Japan and sold the trees.
There are a great many varieties of this persimmon in the Far
East. The Department of Agriculture continued to import plants
in order to find some able to endure the cold weather of the
middle and northern states. Five thousand plants were distributed
in 1879 and the following year the Department considered that
the value and good reputation of the persimmon had been
established. Fruit growers and the Department, expecting a
marketable fruit to materialize in a few years, continued to
import plants. After 1873, yearly introductions were made from
a nursery at Tokyo, but by 1889 new plants were being supplied
by nurseries in America.
 Efforts of the Department of Agriculture to find persimmons
suited to northerly climates were supported by further intro-
ductions in the last decade of the century. Fifteen varieties received
in 1891 from the Minister of Agriculture of Japan were selected
with care from different parts of the Japanese Empire. The trees
were divided and one set was sent to the Florida Experiment
Station at Lake City and the other to an individual grower, R. D.
Hoyt of Seven Oaks, Florida. They were propagated there so the
progeny could later be sent to the North for trial. More hardy
varieties of this valuable addition to our fruits from Japan, Korea,
and China were placed in the hands of propagators from 1892 to
1897.
 CINCHONA
 Many attempts were made to introduce the cinchona tree into
the United States during the nineteenth century when it was dis-
covered that the sources of quinine in South America were facing
extinction.
 Britain, Holland, and other countries had shown that new plan-
tations could be readily established. Extensive preparations by
the British Government for cinchona plantations in the West
Indies excited American interest, and an arrangement was made
with Jamaica to exchange other plants for 3,000 cinchona plants
for the South. Several hundred plants of different varieties were
grown and disseminated by the Department of Agriculture in
1864. A plan for a cinchona plantation was approved in 1866.
Two years later, an appropriation was recommended for the
establishment of a plantation by the Department.