Abstract
Dr. David Fairchild, veteran plant explorer of the United States Department of Agriculture, has been awarded the Meyer Medal of the American Genetic Association for distinguished services in plant introduction at the Glendale, Maryland, Plant Introduction Station of the United States Department of Agriculture. Dr. Fairchild has been associated with the U.S. Department of Agriculture for fifty years. Through his unflagging interest and enthusiasm, hundreds of new plants have been introduced into America. From this work has grown the date industry in California. The soybean, another introduction resulting from Dr. Fairchild's work, is now an industry worth seventy million dollars. Many of the superior cereals now grown on American farms owe their resistance to disease and their ability to withstand unfavourable weather conditions to plant introductions which have been used in breeding work. A most important recent incident in plant introduction has been the saving of the cantaloupe industry in California which was decimated some years ago by a fungus disease, powdery mildew. A wild variety from India, itself of such poor quality as to be scarcely edible, was found to be resistant to the mildew. This resistance has been transferred by applied genetic method to excellent new varieties, also resistant. Dr. Fairchild joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture in July 1889, fifty years ago. He established, and was for many years head of, the office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction. During this time he travelled widely through all parts of the world. In 1938 he retired from active service with the Department, but his interest in plants has remained, and in the years following his retirement he has been instrumental in much work with new plants now being carried on in Florida, where he has lived since his retirement.
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Dr. David Fairchild. Nature 144, 237 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144237b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144237b0