For 70 years the work of Frank N. Meyer has remained a neglected segment of Americas heritage. Now, as people are becoming concerned about feeding the worlds growing population and about the loss of genetic diversity of crops, Meyers accomplishments have a special relevance. Soon after Meyer reached Peking (Beijing) in September 1905, he hired a guide, cart, driver, and donkeys and set out into the mountains . During his three expeditions to China, Frank wrote some 2,500 pages of letters. The letters Meyer wrote during his first six months in China reflect a kaleidoscope of impressions and emotions: the miserable nights spent on brick beds in filthy inns, where he battled bedbugs, centipedes, lice, and scorpions; his joy when he "felt at peace with the whole creation" as he collected seeds of crimson oaks and flaming maples in the Ming Tombs Valley; the shock of awakening one night in Mongolia to find an assassins knife a few inches from his throat. He also arranged seed exchanges
with the government agronomist and head foresters, but collected the vast majority of his specimens himself by hand. I have listed below just a very few of the items that Frank Meyer discovered and brought back to America from his first expedition to China. All in all Frank Meyer sent back approximately 23 tons of seeds, scions, ornamentals and plants on his first Chinese expedition..
Sweet Seedless Persimmon (Estimated in 1905 to bring $100,000 to the American economy by the USDA)
White Bark Pine
Chinese Pistachio
Horse Chestnut
Catalpa
Peking Willow
Ginko Biloba
Globe Willow
Semidouble Rose
Peking Pear
1st Oil bearing soy bean sent to America
drought resistant alfalfa.
The above plants were not new to botanists, but all were virtually unknown in America
Wilt resistant spinach (this spinach saved the threatened American spinach canning Industry.
A Larch that had never been recorded previously.
Hull-less oats.
A rare hull-less barley
Bamboo (Now known as Phyllostachys Meyeri)
Pyramid Cherry (Now known as Prunes Meyeri)
Previously unknown Yellow flowering Catalpa
Shantung Plum-Cot
Shantung Peach ( Each fruit weight over 1-pound each)
Seen Chinese cabbage weighting up to 40 pounds each
A rare yellow fruited Hawthorn.
2 Northern monkeys that he was bringing back to the National Zoological Park.
All in all his first trip discovered and sent back to America over 23 tons of rare plants. During this historic and exhausting expedition, while still collecting in China, Frank Meyer unbelievably received three letters of criticism about his efforts on behalf of the USDA from Mr. Sargent (his superior) . Frank Meyer and his party walked 25 - 35 miles each and every day, (in total he walked over 3,000 miles), he was attached by three would be murders which he fended off with just his bowie knife, and while in the mountains a entire gang of robbers, which he fended off with a pistol.
