Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-12-06
Nesice to Mail subscribers.

WI be sent TO suDecr1DorS py mali unIese tne
q infexible. AYERS Il LYNCH.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1889.
Interesting Experime nss OF the Ag-
ricultural Department.
If the Washington correspondent Of
the st. Louis Globe-Democrat can be
trusted, some very interesting expert
ments have been made by the Depart
ment Of Agriculture near Garden City,
Kansas. Some two hundred and forty
acres of land were bought there, which
is located in what is known as the "arid
belt" and which is part of what the
writer calls the Great American Desert
En- passant, it may be said that this vast
and indefinite tract was thought, thirty
years ago, to cover pretty much every
thing west of the Missouri, and even
Californians, as late as 1856, thought
it included this State. Having
purchased the land, the Department set
cut most Of it in grass crops for fodder
and forage for the mules, and for this
purpose ample irrigating facilities had
been provided. 1t next sent a force Of
men out through Colorado and contigu.
ous regions in the arid belt with the
view of securing seeds indigenous to such
lands, which we're procured, painfully
and with difficulty, by men with sacks
over their shoulders, who were provided
with shears to cut off the tops of the
plants containing the seed pods desired.
In addition, various foreign seeds had
been procured, including some from
India. These preparations having been
made. work began at once on the eight
acres selected for the experiments. The
soil is described as ''stiff loam," what
in California we should probably call
'dobe. It was broken up to depth of
. foot and thoroughly pulverized,
and sowed in the various grasses
and grains which had been
selected. One half of it was treated in
q special manner, viz, after the planting
Of the seeds it was covered with layer
Of white straw and rolled, this device
being resorted to on account of the
violent winds which sweep over that
portion of Kansas.
The result was quite surprising, if this
correspondent is to be believed. That
portion of the tract that was covered
with the rolled straw yielded q most
luxuriant crop, far surprising that
gathered on either,s the irrigated
lands, or on that portion of the
eight acres that had not been covered
with straw mating. All the seeds came
mp thriftily except the Indian grasses,
whose lfs-principle is supposed to have
been killed in the mouldy hold of the
vessel during the long voyage. Amongst
the grasses which fourished vigorously
was the lucerne, which is another name
for our alfalfa. Great care had been
taken to select land of the least attrac-
tive character. It had been covered by
an intractable weed far worse than the
Canadian thistle, which had to be re-
moved by the gloved hand. The cor
respondent adds that the Department of
Agriculture will continue these expert
ments until the whole two hundred and
forty acres have been planted after the
manner described.
OF course, if these statements are
authentic, this is a very valuable and
novel development that will be of incal-
culable benefit to the arid regions of the
United States. The scale upon which
the experiments have been tried has not
yet been sufficiently extended to enable
one to accept them as conclusive. The
effects of deep plowing and of thoroughly
pulverizing the soil have long been
known in California. and specially in
structive illustrations OF their beneficial
effects can be cited from Los Angeles
county. It is not over ten years since
the mere suggestion that such ranches
as the Centinela, the Sausal Redondo
and San Fernando would pro-
duce abundant crops was greeted with
shout of derision. And yet, as a mat
ter of fact, these lands are today amongst
the most prolific in California, and have
been the scenes where fortunes have
been made in wheat and barley. The
opening up of the soil by the plow has
developed strong forces of capillary at
traction; and the moisture retained in
the soil has drawn that from the atmos-
phere. The only new thing in the
experiments of the Department of Ag-
riculture, as far as this State is con.
cerned is the expedient of rolled straw
az covering for the growing crop. This
is doubtless refsrable to the greater cold
and the more violent winds which pre-
vail in Kansas. We meet the latter diff
Guilty here with wind-breaks; and
special felicity of the condition of the
California farmer is that he has no cold
10 contend with, his cattle depasturing
the lush grasses of our mesas every day
of the fall, winter and spring, and alter
mating them in the summer with the
abundant alfalfa of our bottom lands.
A FEW Of the most prominent business