America's Crop Heritage


 Tunis grass, received in 1909 from Dr. L. Trabut of Algiers,
 aroused some attention in the Department of Agriculture.
 Hundreds of sorghum introductions were made during the first
 two decades of the twentieth century. They came from Africa.
 India, China, and Australia for testing, breeding, and selection
 at a time when the vast ranch lands were giving way to farms
 and more intensive livestock raising in the Great Plains. The
 sorghums were indispensable in this transformation of the West.
 NEW FORAGE PLANTS
 An intensive search for varieties of alfalfa began with the
organization of the Section of Seed and Plant Introduction and
continued for over a decade. Hundreds of alfalfas were tried,
and several unusual and distinctly valuable varieties such as
the Peruvian alfalfa were discovered. Alfalfa exploration in
Turkestan in 1901 discovered types with great resistance to cold
and drouth.
 Ernest A. Bessey explored in the Turkestan and adjacent
regions in 1903 to find alfalfas, cereals, and fruits for the North-
west. He shipped the Department 5,000 pounds of four types
of alfalfa adapted to extremes of cold, heat, and alkali. Contracts
were made with growers to harvest seed for the Department.
In 1903 two other explorers searched Algeria and Egypt for alkali-
resistant plants, especially alfalfas.
 Niels Ebbesen Hansen, commissioned by the Department in
 1906 to explore in Russia, found the yellow-flowered Siberian
 alfalfa. That same year, a new, distinctive Arabian alfalfa-not
 hardy, but suited for the irrigated lands of the Southwest-was
 brought to public attention. Hansen returned to Siberia in
 1908 and secured more seed and different types of the yellow-
 flowered alfalfa and other forage plants. Of more than six
 hundred varieties of alfalfa tested in 1927, the Peruvian proved
 the most valuable.
 The berseem clover, now grown to some extent in the South-
 east, was brought from Egypt by Lathrop and Fairchild for use
 as a soil reclaimer and enricher. On a visit in 1903 to the estate
 of Cecil Rhodes near Capetown, Lathrop and Fairchild also
 obtained seed of Rhodes grass, a valuable hay crop. Fifteen
distinct varieties of velvet beans, most of them from Asia, had
been planted in Florida by 1909. One of these, the Lyon bean,