America's Crop Heritage


hundred different plants and collected many other plant items
in subsequent explorations.

 HANSEN

 Niels Ebbesen Hansen made his first exploration for the govern-
ment in 1897 to find alfalfa and other forage plants able to thrive
in cold and semiarid regions of the prairie Northwest. Stock
was suffering for forage, and the winter-killing of alfalfa had cost
the farmers of this region millions of dollars. (2)
 Hansen discovered crested wheat grass during his trip through
the steppes of the eastern Volga region and Siberia, when he
observed camel caravans loaded with the hay en route to market.
From an examination of the hay he concluded that the crop would
stand the severe cold and dry weather in the Northwest. In 1944,
over 23 million pounds of the seed were grown in the United
States, and observers believed it would soon cover millions of
acres in the Northern Great Plains.
 On the same trip, Hansen secured seed of bromegrass, a peren-
nial crop for nutritious pasture and hay, able to stand drouth and
cold because of its underground root-stocks. Its good qualities
were immediately noticed and in 1899 orders were placed abroad
for more seed. The 1944 seed crop of this grass amounted to over
13 million pounds. On this and several later trips to Russia,
Hansen also brought back over thirty varieties of proso, a grain
similar to millet, grown in the drier regions of Asia and Europe.
 Hansen tells of his connection with the wheat introductions
by Carleton as follows:

 I noticed that wheat bread in European countries was not as snow-white as in
the United States. It was more of a creamy tinge. Our ordinary hard spring
wheats date back to Galicia in Poland. I learned that much wheat was exported
from Russia, and used extensively in blending with their home wheats in France,
England, Italy, and other countries in west Europe. I also remembered that
German-Russian colonists in South Dakota had brought over some of it from dry
regions in Russia, but that millers refused them as rejected wheats, good only for
chicken feed . They needed special milling owing to the hard grains. Then in
Russia I collected many authentic samples of these wheats, such as Kubanka,
Arnautka, Krasnoturka, Belloturka, Chernokoloska (Black beard), and many more.
Also brought wheats from Turkestan and Siberia.
 Upon my return in the spring 1898 this material and inside report was sub-
mitted to Secretary Wilson. It was up to him as a matter of policy, and would
involve a fight with the milling interests. But Secretary Wilson wanted to help
the northwest farmers who could raise these wheats in dry years and they needed
much less rainfall. Secretary Wilson was never afraid of a fight, so decided quickly.