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Introduction
In January 1899, a rather pushy 'young man' turned up at the American Consulate in Odessa, one of the main ports for exporting grain grown on the steppes of the Russian Empire. He presented the consul with a card: 'Mark Alfred Carleton, Agricultural Explorer for the United States of America, Washington, D.C.' Thomas E. Heenan, the long-standing consul, wrote to the State Department:
It is none of my business of course, but it seems to me that consuls should be furnished with a list of the official titles they are apt to meet with abroad, which U.S. officials are entitled to carry with them. Between you and me, these agricultural people are quite of the opinion that they are running the government both at home and abroad, with the exception probably of this consulate.
Heenan continued that he found 'these agricultural people ... a bit trying', and that the 'present "explorer" was preceded about one year ago by another explorer, and both travelled over the same ground.' With evident resentment, he added: 'the Agricultural Dept ... no doubt has ... plenty of money'.1 This incident illustrates the importance the US government attached to the development of agriculture, the recognition that American farmers could benefit from Russian experience, and the existence of contacts between the USA and the Russian Empire.
The US Department of Agriculture was actively promoting 'agricultural exploration': the search for new crops.2 A few months before Carleton turned up in Odessa, he had received a telegram from David G. Fairchild, the head of the Department's new Section of Seed and Plant Introduction, proposing to send him to Russia. Barely able to conceal his excitement, Carleton wrote: 'A trip to Russia is what I have been wishing to make above all others'. He aimed to select varieties of wheat 'best adapted to our central wheat region', on the Great Plains, taking into account 'resistance to drouth [sic], cold and disease, early maturity etc'. He was confident that the 'knowledge to be gained regarding ... relations of climate and soil to wheat diseases, adaptations of varieties etc ought to be considerable' and that 'the expedition [would] be of great utility to American agriculture'.3 At...