446 Thirty-first Annual Report 



general adoption by the farmers in need of pastvirage on alkaline 

 ground. 



IX. cooPERATivr; crop experiments 



Under this project the Department of Agronomy supplies to 

 certain picked farmers in all parts of the State limited quantities 

 of seed of the varieties of crops that we have reason to believe wiU 

 prove better than the crops already grown in their localities. The 

 farmers in turn agree to test these crops under the same conditions 

 as are given crops planted from local or home grown seed, and at 

 some time during the growing season the experiments are visited 

 by a representative of the Agronomy office and at the close of the 

 season comparative yields are reported. In handling this work, 

 cooperative tests have been carried with ninety farmers, and four 

 hundred fifty lots ol seed have been supplied to them. The work 

 includes tests with wheat, oats, barley, cotton, cowpeas, soy-bean?, 

 fieldpeas, sweet clover, millet, corn, sorghums, velvet beans, sun- 

 flowers, vetch, kudzu, and Napier grass. This project is supplying 

 very definite and valuable information concerning all parts of the 

 State, and is invaluable to us in answering letters and handling 

 general correspondence with farmers. It is our desire to increa:e 

 this work considerably during the next few years. 



X. A STUDY OE INDIAN AGRICULTURE 



This is a new project and one that promises to be of consider- 

 able importance to the dry-farming regions of this and surrounding 

 states. For a great many years, perhaps for centuries, the Indians 

 of Arizona have been able — largely under dry-farming conditions — 

 to grow the crops necessary to maintain themselves from year to 

 year. In the same localities where these Indians have lived indefi- 

 nitely, white settlers have repeatedly failed because of inability to 

 grow crops. It appears that a detailed and comprehensive study 

 of the crops grown by these Indians and the methods employed by 

 them in growing these crops should be of material assistance to us 

 in furthering the agriculture of our present day farmers. 



XI. SHED CERTIFICATION WORK 



There are certain areas in the State that, because of peculiar 

 climatic and soil conditions, because of special market conditions, 

 or because of local organizations, are particularly fitted to produce 

 and market special varieties of field crops. At the present time 

 the most notable instance of this character is the production and 

 marketing of Hairy Peruvian alfalfa seed from the Yuma Valley. 



