The very early years of the beginnings of agriculture are understandably difficult to chronicle. How, and why does one become a farmer? Perhaps someone noted that a stand of plants with grains or fruit bore edible materials over and over again. Someone else may have found that seeds could be saved. Others may have discovered that it was easier to stay in one place than to move about constantly. Increasingly sophisticated tools for planting, cultivating, and harvesting would be developed. Structures for seed storage, and methods for confining animals for domestication would follow. The perception that some plants performed better than others would lead to selection and the development of the first identifiable varieties. These would also become desirable for trading and therefore the movement of early germplasm from one location to another would be the rudimentary beginning of germplasm exploration and acquisition. Documented collection trips came later. One of the earliest known is a collecting trip sent by Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt to an almost legendary place called Punt to collect incense trees for the royal gardens. This occurred about 1500 BC (Fig. 1). Thutmose III, Pharoah after Hatshepsut, sent a collecting trip to Syria, in about 1450 BC, which brought back seeds, fruit, and plants of various species (Fig. 2). Over the ensuing centuries, plants and animals were transported from place to place. For example, lettuce (Lactuca sativa) probably originated in the Middle East and traveled to Egypt, where it was first recorded in tomb paintings during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, about 2500 BC (Fig. 3) (Keimer, 1924; Harlan, 1986). It moved around the Mediterranean Basin and was recorded in Persia (550 BC) and Greece (430 BC). It was recorded in Rome (164 AD), where it became very popular. There were several named varieties of different types. It was The value of germplasm has been described in various ways: as the raw material, or the life blood, of plant breeding, as the key to the maintenance of diversity of living forms on earth, as an indicator of the origin of cultivated species. This paper will focus primarily, but not completely, on the first description, that germplasm serves as the source of genes for disease resistance, for environmental adaptation and tolerance, for yield improvement, for appearance and beauty, and other traits that enable plant breeders to bring about the improvement of our crop species and thereby insure the continued productivity of agriculture including horticulture. Of course, the ultimate goal is the availability, of generous supplies of food, feed, fiber, and ornament for the people of the world. The conversion of the human life style from the hunter-gatherer phase to the more sedentary production of food, or agriculture, is commonly accepted to have taken place about 10 millenia ago. At that time, everything that grew was germplasm, because there were no named cultivars. It was the beginning. In modern times, we tend to think of germplasm as consisting of landraces and wild forms introduced into the mainstream of breeding and production and that cultivars are the settled forms that are to be changed by the introduction of genes from new, not quite ready for prime time, forms. But, in fact, germplasm is still everything that grows. Our sources of genetic variation are domestic, modern, and heirloom cultivars, cultivars and landraces from somewhere else, genetic stocks, and wild relatives, both near and distant. We also should add to that list the accumulating stocks of DNA in various libraries. This paper is divided roughly into three parts. The first is historical, to chronicle some of the notable events of the past, to assess their significance, and to set the stage for the activities of the present and of the future. The second part is a discussion of the important aspects of modern germplasm activity: collection, storage, evaluation, application, and distribution. The third part is an assessment of modern trends in germplasm acquisition and plant breeding and how they may impact upon the future. Fig. 1. Temple wall drawing of two ships of Queen Hatshepsut's fleet showing incense trees being loaded on board.