Plant Introduction Under

 Rusk and Morton


ELEVATION of the Commissioner of Agriculture to the position
of Secretary of Agriculture with a seat in the President's Cabinet
did no more than accelerate effective trends. Secretary Jeremiah
M. Rusk, a Republican, and his Democratic predecessor, Com-
missioner Norman J. Colman, both were from western states and
realized the importance of an experimental approach to the prob-
lems of Western agriculture. Colman had pointed out the needs
existing in the West for specially adapted varieties of crops and
had done much to introduce crops of a tropical nature for the
South. Rusk continued to work on these problems. Colman had
stressed the search for crops and plant varieties suited to many
local needs. Rusk searched for plants for the sake of diversifying
the national agricultural economy.
 RUSK'S PROMOTION OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY
 Rusk asserted that the main purpose of the Department was
to introduce or assist in the introduction of new, useful plants.
Once an introduction was successful, further propagation and
distribution was left to commercial growers.
 To Rusk the value of plant introduction lay in the diversifi-
cation of agriculture and in national self-sufficiency. Tariffs
should be used to protect crops which could be grown on our own
soil. This would give the farmer the benefits of the home market,
Rusk thought. He looked with satisfaction upon the McKinley
tariff of 1890 which provided a bounty for the production of raw
sugar at home, and had the effect of reducing agricultural imports
" .. which could be, and should be produced in this country."
Agricultural experiment stations had been authorized in the
Hatch Act of 1887, and within three years more than seventy were
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