18 CIRCULAR NO. 132, BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 



In the interest of agricultural progress, as well as for other reasons, 

 these conditions must .be improved. A better system of house con- 

 struction is needed to give shelter from high temperatures and make 

 it possible to sleep or rest in the middle of the day and utilize the 

 cooler hours of the early morning for field work. 



The health and efhciency of the farming popidatioh are also likely 

 to depend to a considerable extent upon the introduction and use of 

 new plants able to grow through the summer in spite of the extreme 

 conditions that are fatal to most of the food plants, fruits, and 

 ornamentals raised in other parts of the country. The irrigated 

 districts of the Southwest are in reality new oases in the desert, and 

 their possibilities of development should be mvestigated from this 

 point of view. To settlers from other parts of the United States, 

 or even from Europe, the southwestern conditions are altogether 

 new, and we need to profit by the methods and the crops that have 

 been developed in other desert countries to a much greater extent 

 than has appeared thus far. 



[Cir. 132] 



