Shiner gazette. [volume] (Shiner, Tex.) 1893-current, 1909-07-29
A Real Experiment
Station.

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ing. 1t is not the purpose of the
government to make model
crops. There is no idea of max
ing show place. The gardens
are workshops, in which experts
study garden and orchard pests,
try out new species of plants and
domesticate them, adding new
resources to the country's list
of money makers, etc. They
are, in reality, experiment
farms. But in order not to con-
fuse them with the state expert
ment stations the name cooper
alive garden has been adopted.
The work that Professor
Green and his men are doing at
Brownsville indicates what the
cooperative garden would do
here. The war department turn
ed the old fort over to the agri-
cultural department early in the
summer of 1907. The expert
ment garden was located on the
old cavalry drift ground, be-
tween the artillery barracks and
the river. The piece is fifty
acres in size. 1t has been pack
ed as hard as iron by the hoofs
of the country's war horses for
many years. Neglected since
the negro troops were with
+ drawn from the post, it had in
the meantime grown up to Ber-
muddy grass. Professor Green
and is men cut the grass-two
tonsNto the acre-raked it up
and burned it. Then they plow-
ed the ground, disced and har-
rowed it, turned water onto it
and planted
The little tract contains more
varieties of plant life than any
other of equal size in America,
| suppose. Fifteen hundred diff
ferent varieties of vegetables,
trees, forage plants, flowers,
vines, ETC., are represented there.
"A careful card index record OF
each specimen is kept in the of
flee of the director. He can tell
you at minutes notice, when
each item was planted and what
success or failure it has made,
according to observations taken
at frequent intervals, down to
date. He has beans from the
arid districts of India that are
expected to be a valuable food
crop for the Southwest Texas
regions that cannot easily be wa
tered. He has plants brought
from all over the world, contrib
uted without cost to Texas by
the federal government. Many
of these, like the Indian beans
are calculated to facilitate the
making Of farm homes in dis
tricts that, for want of water
cannot produce the crops native
to the soil. He is making q
study of soils, waters, trees and
insect pests. When he learns
how to get the better of a bug
that destroys quantities of gar
den truck, and that the garden
ers don't know how to get rio
of, he tells them. It's mighty
practical work - work that
makes and saves dollars. Work
too, that the average farmer OIL
fruit grower has neither the
time, the money nor the expert
knowledge to do for himself.
OBEYING THE BIBLICAL IN
JUNCTION.
1t struck me that man who
knows how to do such things
could make a very strong poem
on the order of the Biblical in
junction to turn swords int
pruning hooks, after looking
into the old barracks, now fillet
with plows, discs, harrows
spades, forks, shovels and hun
bred other tools of peaceful in
dustry. The contrast was mad
all the more vivid by the recol
lection that the last military oc
cupants of the old fort were
lot of hurley, disorderly blacl
men, who, because they were de
prived of normal, natural, use
full labor, ran amuck in the tow
with guns in their hands.