NATURE 



441 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 1918. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE WESTERN I 

 STATES. 



(i) Western Live-stock Management. Edited by i 

 Prof. Ermine L. Potter and others. Pp. xiv4- | 

 462. (New York : The Macmillan Co. ; Lon- 

 don : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1917.) Price ' 

 los. net. 



(2) Soil Physics and Management. By Profs. J. G. 

 Mosier and A. F. Gustafson. (Lippincott's Col- 

 legfe Texts: Agriculture.) Pp. kiii + 442. 

 (Philadelphia and London : J. B. Lippincott Co., 

 n.d.) Price 8s. 6d. net. 



THE Anglo-Saxon race always tends to look , 

 westwards in time of trouble, and it has 

 usually found comfort there. Horace Greeley's 

 famous advice, "Go west, young man," expresses 

 a deep-seated feeling which years of emigration ; 

 have only served to intensify. Once again the 

 West is looming large in the history of civilisation, 

 and this time the Allies are looking there for food 

 and men. The books before us deal with the agri- 

 cultural conditions, and are, therefore, assured of 

 a hospitable reception from agricultural students. 



(i) Prof. Potter, of the Oregon Agricultural 

 College, breaks pew ground in his treatment of 

 "Western Live-stock Management," and gives an 

 account of what Western stock-keepers are actually 

 doing in the way of raising and feeding their cattle. 

 Real improvement, the author insists, must be 

 based on accurate knowledge of present practices. 

 By the West the author understands the region 

 lying between the one-hundredth meridian and the 

 Pacific Ocean — the western parts of the Dakotas, 

 Nebraska, Kansas, and the eleven States west 

 thereof. In the main it lies high, most of it above 

 2000 ft. ; otherwise. However, there are great topo- 

 graphical diversity, immense plains, rolling hills, and 

 the wildest and most rugged mountains. Generally 

 speaking, the soil is good. Climatically, the most 

 notable characteristic is the low rainfall ; excepting 

 the western parts of Oregon and Washington, 

 almost the entire region has less than 10 in. 

 of rain per annum. The dry climate and high alti- 

 tude make the summers cool, particularly at night ; 

 the winters are mild, except in the north, 

 and, as their coolness is mitigated by the dry- 

 ness, they are more comfortable for men and 

 beasts than those in the eastern States. 



These soil and climatic conditions determine 

 largely the type of husbandry, and it is not sur- 

 prising that grazing is the main industry. Most 

 of the land still belongs to the United States 

 Government, and is called Federal or Government 

 land ; a good deal of this is forest reserve grazed 

 only by those possessing permits from the forest 

 supervisor. The rates payable for sheep are 15-16 

 cents per head per annum ; for cattle, 60-64 cents ; 

 for horses, 75-80 cents ; and for pigs, 36-38 cents. 

 In Texas, however, much of the land is "deeded " 

 in private ownership, whilst elsewhere there is a 

 good deal of unappropriated land not reserved for 

 NO. 2545, VOL. lOl] 



forests and not hitherto thought good enough for 

 homesteading. This "free range" amounts to 

 290,000,000 acres, but it is not so helpful as it 

 looks to the hian who wishes to make a living out 

 of nothing, because no one is entitled to take steps 

 to save hay ; if anyone does so he cannot prevent 

 someone else from making off with it. 



Most of the ranges are covered with sage brush 

 in the north, and with chaparral and similar shrubs 

 in the south. Scattered throughout is a certain 

 amount of grass, which, however, tends to grow 

 in clumps or bunches, instead of scattering over 

 the surface as a sod : hence the name " bunch 

 grass " generally given to grasses in the region. 

 As might be expected, the stock-carrying capacity 

 is low. On a good Leicestershire pasture one acre 

 satisfies one bullock for the season ; on a Western 

 range 30-40 acres would be required in the 

 summer and an additional area in winter. Im- 

 provement comes as soon as tillage land is added ; 

 dry farming has already done soniething in this 

 direction, and may do more. Still greater im- 

 provement can be effected by modifying the graz- 

 ing system. Most of the range grasses reproduce 

 by seed, and if they are eaten down so closely 

 that they never mature seed they are finally killed 

 out ; on the other hand, if they are allowed to form 

 seed they can hold their own indefinitely. By 

 arranging to defer the grazing until after seeding 

 time on one-quarter of the range each year, it 

 ; is possible to ensure a thorough seeding once in 



four years, which is found to be sufficient. 

 I It is not necessary to follow the author in his 

 details of management. These are set out clearlv, 

 I and cannot fail to interest the professed agri- 

 cultural student who wishes to learn something 

 , about ranching. 



' (2) Profs. Mosier and Gustafson work at the 

 Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station, and 

 while their subject is of general interest, their 

 illustrations are necessarily largely drawn from 

 the great Middle West, and especially from their 

 own State and from Kansas. Soil physics has 

 ' always attracted much attention in the States ever 

 since Kedzie at Michigan and King at Wisconsin 

 brought out the intimate relationship between 

 cultivation and soil moisture — often a limiting 

 factor in American agriculture. The authors 

 devote a large section of the book to this relation- 

 ship, and they show that it is much more complex 

 ' than was at first supposed. Repeated cultivation, 

 for example, which was considered to increase soil 

 moisture and crop production by breaking "capil- 

 lary films," and thus stopping the escape of water 

 to the surface, is shown in practice to lead to 

 little or no increase in crop. So subsoiling, which 

 had been supposed to increase soil moisture, was 

 found to be ineffective in increasing cereal crops; 

 deep ploughing, however, proved much more 

 useful. An interesting experiment is described 

 that we should like to see repeated in this country. 

 A plot of maize at the Illinois Experimental 

 Station was subdivided ; one part was kept well 

 hoed ; a second had all weeds destroyed by the hoe, 

 but was otherwise untouched ; a third was left un- 



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