Bonanza Years


seed of fifteen kinds of rice for trial in Louisiana, and sorghums
and vetches for the West.

 MINOR INTRODUCTIONS
 From 1897 to 1901 the Department secured other plants of
value. Tests of forage plants and grasses included the March
rape from France, which proved valuable for the Sierra foothills,
and the Goat's rue from the same country. Common, scarlet,
purple, and hedge vetches, European lupines, and many forms of
field peas were procured. The sources of new forage plants-New
South Wales, Victoria, Algeria, Cape Colony, Natal, northwest
India, the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, and Switzerland-indi-
cate comparable climates in the United States for which the plants
were being sought.
 The Department also introduced seed of the Swedish oat from
Russia in 1899 and distributed them to the Federal experiment
stations for trial. This new variety was an established crop by
1904, and twenty-five years later 5 million acres per year were
being sown to the Swedish Select or selections from it. Bavarian
hops introduced in 1900 promised to be superior to the ordinary
varieties. Soybeans then received the attention which led to their
cultivation and utilization by American agriculture and industry.
Three varieties brought from Japan in 1900 began a series of
introductions leading to the establishment of a major farm crop.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Fairchild, David G., The World Was My Garden; Travels of a Plant Explorer.
 New York: Scribners, 1928.
2. Taylor, H. J., To Plant the Prairies and the Plains: The Life and Work of
 Niels Ebbesen Hansen. Mt. Vernon, Iowa: Bios, 1941.
3. Carleton, M. A., "Russian Cereals Adapted for Cultivation in the United States,"
 USDA Division of Botany, Bulletin No. 23, 1900.
4. Clark, J. A. and Bayles, B. B., "Classification of Wheat Varieties Grown in the
 United States in 1939," USDA Technical Bulletin 795, 1942.