The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-09-05
SAT- BUSH.
1t Furnishes Good sustennnce For
Cattle la Arid Regions.

The California experiment station at
Berkeley has recently scored another
remarkable triumph and has won the
gratitude of thousands of farmers in
the arid and semiarid region west of
the Mississippi, says Il correspondent
of the Boston Transcript. Ever since
1881 experiments have been conducted,
at Berkeley and at the s%ubstations
throughout California to test certain
Australian plants, known in popular
language as salt bushes" 1t seems to
be acknowledged now that some spe-
cics of this large class of plants a be
protitably utilized on land heretofore
considered worthless.
About 1881 the late Earon Won
| Mueller. Il man whose whole life was
| devoted to the study of economic bot
| any and to the distribution of valuable
| species over new districts, sent seeds
of many Australian salt bushes to Cali
fornia. These salt bushes belong to n
Very large class OF curious and useful
plants formerly called chcnopodiaccae,
but more recently s~alsolaccae. The com
mon beet of III gardens and the pig
weed of the roadside belong to this
family. Its members often possess re-
markable powers of resistance to al
kali in the soil and grow where other
plants would quickly perish.
Many plants of the desert belong to
| this family. which is also unusually
droughtrcsisting. Unfortunately. only a
few of the hundreds of species of salso-
laceae have any economic value. Those
species ut first received from Australia
proved unworthy OF general use. EN-
perimcnts We're made With many
kinds. but without marked success un-
til Il species known as atripleX semi.
baccata was tested near Tulare City,
In the upper San joaquin valley. on
very strong "black alkali."
Such alkali land contains so much
carbonate of soda and other salts that
common barley dies there. Barley will
withstand $4,000 pounds of allSali salts
to the acre. but dies when the total
reaches 10000 pounds, while salt bush
has beer known to grow when the
total reached 10000 pounds to the acre
No other useful plant can show such
q record.
The value of salt bush, commercially
speaking, is as a food plant for sheep
cattle, horses. hogs and to some extent
for domestic fowls. 1t keeps green al
summer, grows rapidly, yields from
two to fOur crops in a season and APP
pears to possess as important a place
In farm economics as the we'll known
alfalfa. The most careful analyses OF
the plant made at the experiment sta
ton show that it's food value, pound
for pound. fairly approaches that OF
alfalfa. Since it can be grown on sol
too alkaline to produce alfalfa, il.
value is evident.
Further experiments, extending owe
a long period of years. have dete.m
ined new and larger possibilities. Atri
pick s~emibaccata tllrives in regions o
very light rainfall, on extremely poo
soil undcrlaid by hardpan. Its habit
of growth il such places Gre modified
of course; the plant is much smalle
and Yields less, but it covers tn,
ground. keeps green and grows unit
heavy trosts come. The perennial roo
remains in the ground, ready for an
other season. Its value. under sucl
circumstances can hardly be esti
mated. MI that one can say is tina
such Il Pant makes thousands of acre
of almost worthless land capable o
sustaining large flocss and herds.