Soybeans were grown on more than 2 million acres in 1927, when the Department sent W. J. Morse and P. H. Dorsett to Asia to make an exhaustive search for additional soybean breeding material. During the next 2 years they assembled seeds of more than 3 thousand selections to give the United States a bank of soybean germ plasm unmatched in the world.

Soybean breeders in Federal-State cooperative work make continuing appraisal of the germ plasm collection. It supplied the genes for 22 improved varieties released for field crops between 1936 and 1960. These include specific varieties for each zone where soybeans are grown commercially, a total area in the United States of more than 26 million acres. The improved varieties produce 10 to 20 percent more beans, have a higher content of oil, stand more erect in the field, and can be harvested by machine more easily than the plants they replaced.

The bank of germ plasm has become a weapon against crop pests. When soybean cyst nematodes were observed for the first time in the United States in 1954, none of the commercial varieties carried resistance to the disease. When the 4 thousand selections in the germ plasm bank were evaluated, three sources of resistance were found.

The reservoir of germ plasm so carefully built and carefully watched over by soybean breeders has its counterpart in world collections of breeding material of all the main and some lesser crops of the United States.

As the store of germ plasm has grown and the demands for it have multiplied, our national policy for handling it has been revised. The Congress broadened the base in 1946 in certain provisions of the Agricultural Research and Marketing Act. These provide funds for the support of introduction centers in the regions where the plant is most widely grown or most likely to be adapted. The act also gives Federal support to research on introduced material at State agricultural experiment stations.

The Department has responsibility for the exploration for seeds and plants and their introduction, inspection, and quarantine. Much of the material goes directly to the primary introduction center where it is to prove its value to agriculture.

Peanuts, sesame, castorbeans, and subtropical grasses go to the regional center at Experiment, Ga.

Corn, alfalfa, soybeans, and other crops suited to the Midwest are sent to the center at Ames, Iowa.

Beans, peas, safflower, and similar western crops go to the center at Pullman, Wash.

In the Northeast, forage introductions go to Geneva, N.Y.; and fruit and other crops of regional interest are sent to the Plant Introduction Garden at Glenn Dale, Md.

All potato introductions are sent to the inter-regional potato introduction station at Sturgeon Bay, Wis.

The regional introduction stations propagate the seeds, make a preliminary check for growth and disease characters, retain some of the seeds on file, and distribute the remainder to experiment stations for evaluation.

MANY VALUED sources of plant germ plasm have been lost.

Many of them were discarded because they did not serve the immediate interest of a crop breeder. They were susceptible to insects or disease or unsuited to machine production. They gave poor yields in the field.

Many seeds of once prized commercial varieties also have disappeared as those varieties became obsolete.

It is estimated that 75 percent of the alfalfa breeding material and more than 90 percent of the different kinds of clovers introduced over a period of 40 years have been lost. The full measure of the loss cannot be taken. Most of the seeds had been studied for only one or two characters. Their potential can only be guessed, but the estimates rise as crop breeders improve their skills in screening germ plasm and recombining the genes in improved varieties.

To safeguard the treasures in plant germ plasm already assembled and those to be added through the years, our Government has built a national repository the National Seed Storage Laboratory in Fort Collins, Colo. The first seeds were accepted for storage in 1958, just 60 years after the Department of Agriculture began an organized search for new crops.

The stocks come from crop breeders in the Federal-State agricultural network, the universities, commercial seed companies, private individuals, and interested groups. For instance, the American Seed Trade Association has taken the responsibility for assembling seeds of vegetables that once were sold commercially but are now obsolete. Along with the sample, each donor provides a record to show why the seeds are considered of value.

All seeds become the property of the Federal Government. To be accepted, they must pass a test for viability. They are then placed in containers and stored in rooms where humidity and temperature can be held at the best levels to maintain viability. In nine of the storage rooms, the temperatures are held at 20 to 40 F.; in the tenth, between 0 and 30 .

Research in the National Seed Storage Laboratory is devoted to physiological problems in viability of seeds as it relates to longevity. The laboratory rejuvenates the stocks of seeds in storage and publishes periodical inventories of the collection. It also supplies, without charge, material not readily obtained from other stores of plant germ plasm to any bona fide research worker in the United States.

It is not designed to service requests from other countries. These are handled by the New Crops Research Branch of the Agricultural Research Service, and the material may be supplied from various centers.

The laboratory is a symbol of the growing public awareness of the great value of the plant germ plasm brought together from all parts of the world. The genes can serve, like money in the bank, for meeting new and continuing threats of crop pests and as capital for new ventures to open wider markets.

As Jefferson pointed out when the Nation was young, "The greatest service which can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture."

MARGUERITE GILSTRAP, an information specialist with the Agricultural Research Service, began writing about scientific work in the Department of Agriculture when she joined the staff of the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering in 1946.