THE IRRIGA110N A GE. 415 



Broom corn millet (panicum milliaceum) is a plant which I expect 

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

 yields where 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 

 acre of grain excellent for converting into hog fat, mutton or beef, 

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

 has ten acres under irrigation and owns adjacent thereto a tract of 

 arid land will want such crops. 



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

 for a locality. Ten years ago this plant was an experiment in the 

 United States. It was said to thrive on land too dry for Indian corn 

 and it was tested through western Kansas, where corn-raising was a 

 precarious industry owing to the light rainfall. According to the re- 

 port of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, Kansas raised in 1893, 

 47,000 acres of this crop; in 1893 she raised 535,743 acres valued at 

 s ". '-*-.: - ., reclamation, practically, of tail nUUon ftcroe in a 

 single State. Entire Western counties are now yielding magnificent 

 annual crops of this valuable plant, which, prior to its introduction, 

 consisted of supposed worthless land. Brome grass (bromus inermis) 

 is another instance of a fine arid-land plant, which required pushing. 

 Brome grass will undoubtedly reclaim enormous areas of arid land. 

 Xo 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 immediately start off, producing splendid forage. This 

 grass has been known in several sections for a number years, and 

 it has never been growo extensively even in those sections, and its 

 fame has never spread widely, until last year the department under- 

 took to educate Western farmers as to its virtues and to distribute 

 seed." 



