State of the Union, page 149 by Theodore Roosevelt
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servation through refrigeration, packing, and handling, which have been quite successful. We are helping our hop growers by importing varieties that ripen earlier and later than the kinds they have been raising, thereby lengthening the harvesting season. The cotton crop of the country is threatened with root rot, the bollworm, and the boll weevil. Our pathologists will find immune varieties that will resist the root disease, and the bollworm can be dealt with, but the boll weevil is a serious menace to the cotton crop. It is a Central American insect that has become acclimated in Texas and has done great damage. A scientist of the Department of Agriculture has found the weevil at home in Guatemala being kept in check by an ant, which has been brought to our cotton fields for observation. It is hoped that it may serve a good purpose.
The soils of the country are getting attention from the farmer's standpoint, and interesting results are following. We have duplicates of the soils that grow the wrapper tobacco in Sumatra and the filler tobacco in Cuba. It will be only a question of time when the large amounts paid to these countries will be paid to our own people. The reclamation of alkali lands is progressing, to give object lessons to our people in methods by which worthless lands may be made productive.
The insect friends and enemies of the farmer are getting attention. The enemy of the San Jose scale was found near the Great Wall of China, and is now cleaning up all our orchards. The fig-fertilizing insect imported from Turkey has helped to establish an industry in California that amounts to from fifty to one hundred tons of dried figs annually, and is extending over the Pacific coast. A parasitic fly from South Africa is keeping in subjection the black scale, the worst pest of the orange and lemon industry in California.
Careful preliminary work is being done towards producing our own silk. The mulberry is being distributed in large numbers, eggs are being imported and distributed, impro