212 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Certainly the growing importance of the beet sugar 

 industry in this country and the wide field for its ex- 

 pansion should justify Congress in making provision 

 for the experiment stations suggested in the report 

 of the department of experts. 



When we reflect that during the calendar year 

 1898 we imported 543,288,489 pounds of beet sugar 

 valued at $17,331,143, and 3,223,666,073 pounds of cane 

 sugar, valued at $104,443,619, besides molasses to the 

 value of $1,976,916, or a total value for sugar and 

 molasses of $123,741,678, it becomes evident that the 

 field in front of the intelligent beet farmer is a wide 

 one. 



At this writing the proposed changes in the 

 McKinley tariff have not been consummated, and 

 the outcome of the debates in Congress is somewhat 

 uncertain. If the sugar bounty law should be re- 

 pealed without offering the sugar producers some- 

 thing in the way of an equivalent, it would greatly 

 antagonize the cane growers of Louisiana and Flor- 

 ida, as well as the beet producers in all sections of 

 the Union. This would endanger the party in power 

 and possibly lead to future legislation of a perma- 

 nently protective character in this direction. In any 

 event, however, the beet industry will thrive in many 

 places, and the production of sugar from beet roots 

 in this country must become an established industry. 



EXPERIMENTAL FARMING IN UTAH. 



Rotation of Crops, Sub-Irrigation and Tillage 

 Tests by Agricultural College. 



BY PRESIDENT J. W. SANBORN. 

 I. 



THE experiment station farm of the Agricultural 

 College of Utah includes 83 acres of land de- 

 voted to common farm operations and to investiga- 

 tion. It is situated on upper bench soil a foot and a 

 half beneath the surface, having a compact sub-soil 

 of one to two feet in thickness that is impenetrable by 

 the plow. Beneath this it is very gravelly. 



ROTATION OF CROPS. 



Twenty-four acres of it are laid out to rotation of 

 crops in the following order: Corn, oats, clover, 

 wheat, timothy, timothy. This rotation is based upon 

 the philosophy recognized by expert farmers as ap- 

 plicable to rotation, the alternation of narrow and 

 broad-leaved plants, deep and shallow rooted plants, 

 plants of unlike feeding capacity, unlike dates of 

 maturity, unlike leaf development, unlike root devel- 

 opment, unlike composition of stock feeding, so divid- 

 ing the crops as to extend operations over the vary- 

 ing seasons of the year. This farm is regarded as 

 very poor in quality, yet the crops of last year were 

 over 40 bushels of wheat, oats about 50, while the 



timothy and corn were good fair crops. The soil is 

 not very well adapted to timothy, and the cold nighfs 

 make corn less productive than in the Mississippi 

 valley. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH CROPS. 



Twenty-two acres were given to pasture and sowed 

 to varieties of grass and clover, namely: Lucerne, 

 white clover, timothy, red top, English rye grass, 

 Kentucky blue grass, orchard grass, meadow foxtail, 

 meadow fescue. This produced on our dry upland 

 soil under irrigation a luxuriant growth, at one time 

 carrying 45 head of stock and a few sheep and at no 

 time having less than 34 upon it. A test of each of 

 these varieties separately shows that for equal area 

 the mixed pasture grass surpassed Lucerne or any 

 other single variety. There was little difference in 

 grazing value between timothy, tall oat grass, English 

 rye grass or meadow fescue. Meadow foxtail and 

 blue grass proved excellent grazing grasses. The 

 rest of the farm is given over to plat experiments. 

 On the section devoted to varieties of grass we found 

 that for the arid region meadow foxtail (alopecurus 

 Pratensis) promises to have great value because it 

 heads in May and will produce one good crop for 

 grazing and a fair crop for cutting before the effect 

 of spring rains is lost. The same may be said of 

 Sanfoin and of Lucerne. On this farm sheeps' fescue 

 has surpassed its record at other points in giving a 

 dense and successful crop under irrigation. 



A section is devoted to varieties of corn, wheat, 

 oats and barley. The result of such experiments I 

 deem of very little interest, except for the immediate 

 locality of their test. 



SUB-IRRIGATION. 



Some 80 to 90 plats are devoted to sub-irrigation 

 versus surface irrigation; to irrigating every three 

 days or multiple of three days until reaching 18 days 

 apart, the same amount of water being used for the 

 season. Irrigating with different amounts of water 

 from one foot to four feet for the season ; also fall 

 and spring verms spring irrigation. Irrigating early 

 and late during the season to note the influence of 

 an extended period of irrigation, and to other in- 

 quiries. Sub-irrigation has proven a failure for 

 farm crops for the reason that the lateral movement 

 of water is too slow to equal evaporation from leaves 

 of plants and from the soil. One and one-half feet of 

 water on our open soil has proven as efficient as a 

 larger quantity for wheat, although double this 

 amount is required for timothy. On our open soil 

 irrigation every 12 days seems to be required for 

 maximum quantity of wheat, but not so often for 

 timothy, as the sward furnished by timothy seems to 

 hold the water better. Application of water in the 

 fall and again in the spring is found advantageous, 

 as the soil stores the water and retains it until spring, 



