The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-02
Story Told by the Harvester in
the Pacific Coast
States.
PROLIFIC WALNUT TREES.
Heavy Almond Yield at Rio Bonlto.
Some Instructions for
Farmers.

| gathered last week. The crop is very
| fine one, says the Santa Rosa Farmer, and
the weather, taken all in all, has been very
favorable for pickers and growers, facili-
tating the gathering of the crop in the
| proper season. Even more care than usual
has been exercised in curing the fragrant
| blossoms, and hop buyers all readily con-
| cede that the Sonoma County crop of 1895
! Is by far the finest ever placed on the
market. The number of bales per acre is
from five to ten, according to the stand of
hops, the cultivation and the location
| The cut worm has seriously interfered with
the stand in several localities and added to
the expense account. The weather has
been cool and favorable in Alameda County,
and prime article. about as fine as the
Sonoma County crop, has been baIed, the
| yield being about the same, seven bales
per acre.
Frank Cress of Wyandotte has twelve
| walnut trees and the oldest is eleven years
old, says the Oroyille Register. ALI the
trees are prolific bearers. and from the old
est tree he gets between three and four
60 pound sacks. These he sold last wear at
ten cents pound. He says English wal
nuts have no disease, bear heavily, and
there is handsome profit if an orchard
Will bear anything near as heavy as his
dozen trees do.
The Nevada City Transcript says that the
700 acres OF almonds at Rio Bonlto, Butte
County, will yield this year 250,00O pounds
which at ten cents a pound will equal
$25, 900, or trifle less than $40 an acre.
Had it not been for the late frosts the crop
would have given over $3.50 an acre. This
n of ba aiOiO
where the farmer is lucky to get back even
a little more than his seed.
AT the Pullman (Wash.) Agricultural
College several weeks are devoted every
year to the instruction of farmers on a
line quite similar to that pursued at the
Wrights Camp Summer School in this
State. In referring to the Inauguration of
this idea of farmers school at Pullman,
President E. A. Bryan of the agricultural
college recently said that for the first two
or three days the farmers seemed to think
they were perhaps wasting their time;
that having devoted all their lives to
farming they perhaps knew as much as
any schoolmaster or professor could know;
but they soon discovered that each pro-
lessor had made special study of his de-
partment, and that he was able to give
them large amount of not only interest
ing but very valuable information in re-
gard to it, and that while college professors
might not know as much about farming
as practical farmers, each one of them did
know little more about some departm ent
OF farming than even the farmer himself
Salt Bush at Traver.
Last January the editor of the Traver
Advocate secured and planted a small
quantity of Australian salt bush seed. In
April he made trip to the Tulare agricul-
tural station and got some plants, which
he planted on the same land with the seed.
In the last issue of his paper appears the
following: We now have at our office one
of the plants grown from the seed, which
m easures eight feet across. We learn from
our experience with the plant that the seed
should be planted early in the fall and not
covered very deep in the ground. In fact,
we think seed scattered on the surface, be-
fore the winter rains begin, would give
best results. We can show plant for
every seed planted unless it be in one or
two spots where they were irrigated They
do not seem to do as well when irrigated
as they do on unirrigated land, and cult
walton is not necessary, at least we did not
| cultivate.
The experiment with US was to see il it
would grow on alkali-the kind of land
that they say will eat off crowbar when
stuck into it-and such land that is not
cultivated, but lies waste. Well, this
is the kind OF land on which we scratched
under the few seeds we HAD. A look at the
land about once in two weeks was all the
attention it got; but that seemed to be all
| 1t needed, for it grew at a rapid rate-that
is, the plants from the seed. The trans
planted plants did not do well, and all
though we watered and kept the ground
loose around them they soon died. !:
We have great faith in this salt bush
and truly believe that there has not as vet
been any plant brought to the observation
of the California farmer that will assist
more in neutralizing and reclalming alkali
| land than it will. We are convinced that il
is adapted to such lands, because our obser-
walton shows US that if planted in the fall
the plants will be large enough TO shade
the land directly around it before the hot
summer sun draws the alkali to the sur
face. And any one with Knowledge of
such land knows that if the land is shaded
it is always moist. This fact is what we
consider the only thing that makes it pos
| slble for anything to grow on the land.
| This being the case the salt bush fills all
| requirements, as one single plant will send
| out mat of runners four feet in every
| direction and cover the ground four or five
inches deep. AS forage plant we can say
| that we have tried it and find that horses,
cattle, hogs and sheep eat it. We have not
| so much that we could carry it in large
| quantities, but have only tried it on a
small scale.
A chemical analysis has shown the plant
| to contain something like seventy-five
| pounds of salt to ton of the hay. BY the
| neutralize these bad lands. First, by
keeniner III shaded second hv 0rad11a1lu