FOREWORD

ORVILLE L. FREEMAN

Secretary of Agriculture

GOOD SEEDS ARE both a symbol and a foundation of the good life our people have gained. A basic factor in our realization of mankind's most sought goal, agricultural abundance, good seeds can be a means of our bringing about an Age of Plenty and an Age of Peace and Freedom. We can use our good seeds to help end hunger and fear for the less fortunate half of the human family. So used, our seeds can be more meaningful to a hungry world than can the rocket that first carries man to the moon.

This Yearbook of Agriculture seeks to provide a new and improved basis for understanding the complex order of Nature's forces so that man can better shape them in a positive and creative fashion.

Seeds are ever a positive and creative force. Seeds are the germ of life, a beginning and an end, the fruit of yesterday's harvest and the promise of tomorrow's. Without an ample store of seeds there can be no national treasure, or no future for a Nation.

Finding and developing better seeds is the oldest continuous service our Federal Government has rendered to our farmers—indeed, to all our people. We have collected valuable and curious seeds from all corners of the world. From the founding ninety-nine years ago of this branch of Government, our Department of Agriculture has worked continuously to aid the selection, advance the harvest, and further the development of improved seeds required to produce crops that could better resist drought, heat and cold, the threat of disease, the attacks of insects.

What success we have realized ! The seeds we use today enable our farmers to produce a variety of healthy and hardy food and fiber crops that were virtually unknown a few years ago. Our plant breeders and geneticists have accomplished miracles in the development of more useful plants. In our seeds we have a wealth we all enjoy in abundant foods.

This work has concerned all Americans. Now it must concern all members of the human family who fear hunger.

Now, often to the same foreign lands from which we gathered the parent plants, we return more useful seeds. We can do more.

In our seeds we have a wealth we can transmit—without the need of translation—to people of other lands who draw their living from land and forest. The message of seeds that flourish and produce an abundant harvest is one that all the human family can understand. Exported with vigorous purpose and direction, our seeds can be a vital factor in reaching the goals we seek through Food for Peace. Although we cannot feed the entire world, we can supply the technology and the abilities the world can use to feed itself.

This Yearbook of Agriculture, compiling our vast knowledge of seeds for greater application in the United States, also serves well the peoples of the world. By designation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1961 is World Seed Year in an international campaign against hunger.

This Yearbook of Agriculture can be regarded as a contribution of the United States and the Department of Agriculture to World Seed Year, and to the continuing search by the peoples of the world for freedom from hunger.