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Walter T. Swingle - Photo taken from Miami University Archives Colleen Sundlie Founder and Chief Date Aficionado, Date Lady    In 1898, the United States Congress passed the Agricultural Act. “Under this act,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported, “the department is authorized to employ agricultural explorers who shall visit foreign countries in search of economic plants which are not grown in the United States, but which might be adapted to cultivation in the country." Walter T. Swingle, the above-mentioned farm boy and hero of this tale, was eventually one of four agricultural explorers sent overseas to search out new agricultural products not yet grown on U.S. soil. Swingle had...