Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-22
USE OF OIL ON ROADS
GREAT SATISFACTION EXPRESSED
IN CALIFORNIA.
Interesting Topics Discussed in the
Year Book Of the Agricul-
tural Department.

the annual official publication of the De-
partment of Agriculture, known as the
Year Book, will be printed about June 10.
Mr.. James w Abbott special agent for the
Rocky mountain and Pacific coast division.
In a special report makes a review of the
use of mineral oil in road Improvement.
which he says has been a great success in
California. He says:
The growth of oil in popular favor in
southern California has been steady and
rapid. Many of those who have had most
experience with 1t have come to regard its
use in dry region as the most important
discovery ever made In road making Quite
a considerable number of people have said
to the writer, we could not go back to the
old conditions; If we had to give I'D our
oiled roads we would move away"
Mr.. Abbott thinks that oil can be used to
advantage at any place in the United
States where the roads become very dry
and dusty and where water can be kept
out of their foundations in the winter so
that they will remain firm and not give
way beneath the oiled surface in the sprinp
The reliance must, he says be upon an oil
with an asphalt base.
Forest Planting
Mr.. William L. Hall discusses the practi-
cabilty of forest planting in the United
States. He says:
Forest planting is not practicable in
| those regions which are as yet well tim
bered and in which the reproductive DOW
ers Is sufficient to renew the stand as the
trees now standing are cut away. Broadly
speaking, this includes in the south the
hardwood region of the southern Appa-
lachlans and the pine belt from Virginia
to Texas. In the northeast it includes the
spruce forests in New York Vermont New
Hampshire and Maine; it includes also sec
lions elsewhere, as in the Allegheny noun
tains. In the west it includes the heavily
timbered portions of California Oregon and
Washington and smaller sections else
where In other parts of the United States
than those named above there are some
sections in which the supply of timber is
wanting or is becoming insufficient to meet
the demand, and in which natural repro
duction is not sufficient to insure a second
CROP.
Experiment Stations.
w. H Beal of the Office of experiment
stations has an article in which he says:
agricultural experiment stations are
now in operation in every state and terri
tory of the United States including Alaska,
Hawaii and Porto Rico and steps have
been taken under government auspices to
establish agencies for agricultural investi-
cation in the Philippine Islands. There are
sixty such stations, employing nearly ZOO
trained scientific and practical men in their
work. The annual income of these stations
In 1902 was 81 ,32S,S4 of which sum $780,
600 came from the federal government and
$603,S47 from state appropriations and
other sources. During the fourteen years
of their existence a national enterprise
there has been expended in their mainte-
| nance about $14 600, 600 of which $4,000, 600
came from the national treasury and about
S3,OO0.000 from state sources"
Irrigation Systems.
In article on irrigation Edward A
| Beals of the weather bureau says that
| there are more than 100000 acres of irri-
gated land in the United States. The total
| cost of the irrigation systems of the United
| States is $G4, $50 COL, and the value of the
| irrigated crops for the single year of 1899
was SS4, 433, 45S, or 80 per cent greater than
| the cost of the plants. The number of ir-
risators was 1O2,S19, which gives nearly
seVenty-one acres to the farm.