Main Importations


 By 1871 the problems of growing cinchona in this country were
 well known. It was sensitive to cold and required winter pro-
 tection, except in southern California where cultivation was
 carried on for more than a generation. Despite these difficulties
 many requests for the plants were received. A medical association
 memorialized Congress in 1872 urging the introduction of cin-
 chona. But William Le Duc discouraged further attempts to grow
 cinchona, and in 1877 stopped the distribution of the plants.
 Congress was repeatedly asked for money for further experi-
 ments with the cinchona plant. The House of Representatives
 passed a resolution in 1882 asking the Commissioner of Agri-
 culture whether it was feasible to grow cinchona in the United
 States. A letter from a plant authority alleged that the trees would
 stand frost, but needed exacting conditions of soil and climate.
 The Department had no faith in the new plant, but continued
 the experiments to satisfy an unwise demand and give the trees
 an exhaustive trial. By 1891, the cultivation of cinchona had been
 abandoned as unprofitable, for the bark could be imported cheaply
 from British India.
 TEA
 The records of the Department of Agriculture covering tea
 culture in the middle of the nineteenth century are rather sketchy.
 Either Isaac Newton's interests during this period did not extend
 to the promotion of the tea industry, or the war between the
 states prevented contact with the southern planters. During his
 commissionership the Department merely supplied requests for
 plants. Tea culture in British India was watched with interest,
 and labor-saving devices adopted there encouraged the belief
 that tea might be profitable in the United States. Fresh supplies
 of seed from Japan led to the distribution of more thousands of
 plants up to 1867. After this date, the plants were grown mostly
 from seed produced in the southern states, from the plants sent
 there by Robert Fortune.
 Horace Capron, Newton's successor, knew that the southern
 states were congenial to the tea plant, but he observed that
 ". .the amount of manual labor required in its preparation for
 commerce precludes the possibility of competition with the very
cheap labor of China." (4) In California, several hundred Japanese
settled with the intention of growing tea and other plants native
to their former homeland. They put out 140,000 tea plants at