THE JKRIGATIOX AGK. 55 



seems strange that even with our advanced methods of transportation 

 and our mail facilities, valuable discoveries are often buried in com- 

 munities for years. 



A. PLANT OF PROMISE. 



Broom corn millet (Panicum milliaceum) is a plant which I expact 

 in time to see cover great western areas. It will grow heavy grain 

 yields wnere it is both too cold and too dry for Indian corn, too cold 

 for Kafir corn, which would otherwise compete with it, and too dry 

 for wheat. It will produce thirty, forty and even fifty bushels per 

 a:;re of grain excellent for converting into hog fat, mutton or beef, and 

 this upon land where ordinary crops cannot live. The man who has 

 10 acres under irrigation and owns adjacent thereto a tract of arid 

 Lind will want such crops. 



A WOXDKSPCL INCREASE. 



Kafir corn itself. is an example of what the proper crop will do for 

 & locality. Ten years ago this plant was an experiment in the United 

 States. It was sail to thrive on land too dry for Indian corn and it 

 was tested through western Kansas where corn raising was a precar- 

 ious industry owing to the light rainfall. According to the report of 

 the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, Kansas raised in 1893, 47,000 

 acres of this crop;in 18'J^ she raised 535,743 acres valued at $5,t83,380. 

 a reclamation, practically, of half a million acres in a single state. 

 Eniire western counties are now yielding magnificent annual crops of 

 this valuable plant which prior to its introduction, consisted of sup- 

 posed worthless land. Brome grass (Bromus inermis) is another in- 

 stance of a fine arid -lan<l plant which required pushing. Brome grass 

 will undoubtedly reclaim enormous areas of arid land. No grass will 

 grow without moisture but where most grasses would die, brome grass 

 will simply stand still and wait until moisture comes, when it will im- 

 mediately start off, producing splendid forage. This grass has been 

 known in several sections for a number of years but it has never been 

 grown extensively even in those sections, farmers seeming to be afraid 

 of it, and its fame has never spread widely, until last year the De- 

 partment undertook to educate Western farmers as to its virtues^ and 

 to distribute seed". 



