The Kemper herald. (Scooba, Miss.) 1875-1908, 1905-06-29
REDEEMING THE DESERT.
EFFORTS TO MAKE WESTERN
ARID LANDS PRODUCTIVE.
The Great Inland Conquest That Is
Being Waged by the Department OF
Agriculture-There Are No Useless
American Acres, Says Secretary
Woilsoonoolooqoooooooi yom IS
Wilson.

Guy E. Mitchell writes in Opportu-
nifty as follows:
A great inland conquest Is being
waged by the Department of Agricu.'
ture which is completely overturn'
ing the t~ime-honored theory that
the vast acres in the West which can
not be irrigated but a scant natural
growth of grass. The engineer and
the ditch builder will bring under
cultivation many millions of highly
productive acres, but the water sup
ply of the West is limited, and there
will remain perhaps half a billion
acres of the arid region for which
there is no water. The aggressive
work of Secretary Wilson's depart
ment, however, promises fair to make
a very large proportion of this land,
heretofore supposed to be entirely
unfit for agriculture, into farms
through scientific methods of soil cul-
ture and the introduction of exceed
ingly drough-resisting plants.
1H0lS dIO uO DdQ 0SiOct ooAA
Secretary Wilson. I'VE have no use
less American acres. We will make
them all productive. We have agri-
cultural explorers in every far corner
of the world, and they are finding
crops which have become SO accli-
mated to dry conditions similar to
our W in the West that we shall in
time have plants thriving upon all
our so-called desert lands. We will
cover this arid area with plants of
various sorts which will yield hun
dreds of millions Of tons Of addi-
tional forage and grain for western
1ocks and herds. Our farmers will
grow this upon land now considered
practically worthless"
The machinery of Mr.. Wilson's de-
partment is certainly f~ar-reaching, its
explorers are traversing every dis
tant land in the interests of the
American farmer, and especially from
the vast high, dry lands of central
Asia, have come some of the most re-
markable of desert plants, requiring
but a minimum of moisture to pro-
duce luxuriant yields.
A student of desert reclamation
through the agency of drouth plants,
is Frederick v. Coville, the chief bo-
tanist of the department, who is per-
sonally very familiar with the West.
There are millions and millions of
acres" said Mr.. Coville, "in the strict
ly arid region, now considered worth
less for agriculture, which are GER
tain to be settled in small farms as
were the lands of Illinois. This ap-
plies particularly to the great pla-
teaus in the northern Rocky noun
tain region. do not hesitate to pre-
dict that the transformation of these
barren-looking lands into farms
through the introduction of desert
pants will be as extensive a work as
the enormous reclamation through If
rlgation."
A case in point, as suggested by
Mr.. Coville, Is indicated in a recent
State report Of Wyoming, which
shows as a result of experiments
near Cheyenne on a vast plateau
5000 feet above the sea that profit
able crops can be grown on lands
which heretofore have been univer-
sally regarded as suitable for nothing
but the sparse grazing Of cattle and
sheep.
David G.. Fairchild, an agricultural
explorer, and in charge Of the work
Of introduction of new seeds and
plants, says that the greatest sur
prises will be in the utilization of
what are considered desert
lands, for the growing of spe-
cial arid land crops requiring but a
fraction of the moisture necessary for
the growth Of ordinary plants, such
as corr and wheat. 1--WE are finding
new plants of Turkestap and the
steppes of Russia and Siberia, which
grow luxuriantly under such condi-
Ions of ar;dity that the crops of the
Mississippi valley farms would
wither and die as though scorched by
a ~sirocco."
lnacaroni wheat affords a good in
stance of a crop which is capable of
revolutionizing the values of tens of
millions of acres of arid land.
"The macaroni wheat belt" said
Mark A. Carleton, cereal specialist Of
the Bureau of Plant Industry, lex
tends, on AN average, the width of the
United States and from the 9Sth to
well beyond the 1920 meridian, with
a general yielding capacity for half
of this vast area of thirty bushels an
acres, and of the other half of fifteen
bushels.
"Macaroni wheat will grow with
ten inches of rainfall and yield fif-
teen bushels to the acre., where ordi-
nary wheat is an absolute failure.
This is two bushels more than the
average wheat yield for the United
States. There are many other crops
with as great possibilities and which
thrive on but snght moisture, in
Guiding splendid forage plants. l
might mention kafir corn, the sor-
ghums, millets, bronze grass, as we'll
as new kinds of oats and barleys of
wonderful drough-resisting powers,
the emmer or speltz, and a long line
OF others. We are constantly finding
new grains and forage plants in the
| Caucasus, in Algeria, Turkestan ana
| otheT. dry countries which will hiring