Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1906-11-22


the pioneers into the arid west: 1.
Land that is in itself highly fertile,
awaiting only for the application of
water by means of irrigation to
spring into the most abundant pro-
ductivcness, whether of grains or
fruits or vegetables. ?. Land in
which some greasewood is found, |
which is then barely capable of !
reclamation, and requires careful Gull
tivation and irrig alton to wash out |
the alkali which it contains B.
Land completely covered with !
crossword or land completely bar
rem from the presence of alka1i.
This land is generally considered
irreclaimablc.
For all but the worst of the aka
line soils, no viewer, it appears that
nature has not. left us without a
means of making them fertile and
productive. Among our native
weeds there are some peculiar
growths, chiefly of the pigwced and
gooscfoot family, that have the pc
culiarity not ONLY of living in the
alkaline soils but Of extracting the
alkali from them and of rendering
them capable of supporting farm
products. Bccts, spinach, ETC., and
later the grains and other vegc-
tables, will then grow, but not the
peas, lcgumes, beans, vctcehcs,
ETC., which resent even small
amounts of the alkaline salts The
sunflowcr family thrives we'll in
alkali land, but the cultivated
grasses do not.
1t has been shown that sagcbrush
is an indication of fertile soil, and
the question arose in the normal
class at the university as to wheth-
cr the sage itself confcrs benefit
upon the soil or whether it intends
to impovcrish soil naturally rich
So far as present observation goes,
the former proposition seems to be
true, for no land has yet been re-
ported as exhausted from its long
period of ssgcbrush growing This
peculiar fact raises an important
question: Are some plants a bcnc-
fit to the soil? That is, do they
enrich rather than inpovcrish the
land on which they grow? They do
"a fact made use of in the prac-
In the present case, it was asked,
1'Why is it better to have land
covered with sagcbrush than en-
tircly barren ?'' Different class
members answered that unless the
sage has been accidentally removed
as by fire, sagebrush land is likely
10 be superior to barren land for the
folio wing reasons: /. The lans
does not bake when covered by sage
brush, for the roots penetrate thu
soil and render it loose and friabl
underneath, while the surface i
shielded from the direct rays o
the sun. 2. The sagcbrush increase
the fertility of the soil by its annu
al deposit of leaves, which form
dark, rich mould, (humus), at tn
base of every bush, in which tn
scgo lily often f1ourishes under tn
protection of the shaggy shrub tha
shelters it from the wind 8. Th
ground is more moist under .h
sagcs than in land that bakcs an
cracks, but less moist than bar
land that has sandy surface, fc
the latter coverings act as shield
to keep in the moisture, while an
form of vegetation absorbs moistuI
from the soil and transfers 1T int
the atmosphere
Land on which the grcascwoo
flourishcs represents the opPosi'
extreme from the mcaly soil four
about the roots of the sage
Wherever the land has no drainaf
into lake or river it is likely to co,
tain so much saline mineral matt
that it constitutes what is know
as an alkaline soil. Extreme san
pies of this kind of soil may be SCI
on the alkaline flats, which ext
wherever land is not drained.
dry countries like ours, where Il
annual rainfall is SO slight that
great amount of water sinks IN
the earth through the subsoil, b
practically all of the rainfall evap
rates into the atmosphere, the sal
in the soil are not carried off,
they are in lands drained by flowi
streams All soils contain {
minerals of the rocks from viii
they we're formed, but in hum
climates the minerals of the roc
from which they were forme
but in humid climates the miner;
of surface soil are dissolved by I
falling rain and carried into I
brooks. thence into the rivers. a