Bureau No. _______

Bureau: Plant Industry.

Type of Activity: Research.

Project Group: Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction

Sub-group: Foreign Explorations.

Name: South China Explorations.

Leaders: David Fairchild and Frank N. Meyer.

Object: The exploration of the provinces of China lying southeast of Shanghai and south of the Yangtse River, which are practically unknown form the standpoint of American agriculture, for the purpose of securing collections of southern peaches, the edible and timber bamboos, the tung or wood-oil tree, and improved varieties of tallow trees, the litchi, a promising new southern fruit, the longan, an edible nut-producing oak, root crops for wet lands, varieties of rices, soy beans, remarkable southern raspberries, black berries and pears, rare and promising ornamental shrubs and timber trees, and new varieties of species of chestnuts.

Procedure: The experienced agricultural explorer, Frank N. Meyer, who has spent six years in northern China and Manchuria and is familiar with the methods of exploration in that country, will travel mostly on foot through the region, searching for new varieties of our cultivated plants and their wild relatives and studying the systems of agriculture employed there, and will write reports on such practices, and prepare descriptions, with photographs, of such varieties and species of plants which he finds there and sends in, as in his opinion may be valuable for introduction into this country.

Location: South China and en route, Japan.

Legal Authority: Appropriations for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, 1916-1917.

Cost Data: Proposed expenditures, 1916-1917, $6,000.

Date Submitted: July 25, 1916. (See attached argument.)

History: See attached argument, with enclosures, to the Chief of the Bureau, and yearly project reports.

July 25, 1916.