1902. 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



335 



shiftless, ^Yhell left to his own guidance, 

 to make even a moderate success. 



At the end of the first year Mr. Col- 

 lins had reached the conclusion that irri- 

 gation of garden truck in the magnifi- 

 cent black loam of San Antonio, the soil 

 being fully three feet in depth, was not 

 only perfectly feasible, but offered a 

 splendid return on the investment. His 

 enterprise netted him 14 per cent., and 

 his tenant leases for 1 902 are based upon 

 the same figures. 



The rent per acre is fixed at $22.75, 

 which includes a residence, barn, and 

 water. Deducting $2.75 for the land 

 tax, leaves a net return of $20 per acre, 

 a price which under ordinary conditions 

 would be very high, but which in the 

 present instance is not in the least ex- 

 tortionate, in view of the splendid oppor- 

 tunities for profit afforded the tenants of 

 the Collins farm. In order to prove this 

 is so, it will only be necessary to quote 

 a few instances of individual gain by 

 some of the tenants of Mr. Collins, and 

 this illustration will also serve to indi- 

 cate the wonderful fertility of the black 

 mesquite soil when crops are given water 

 at the proper time, and are also given 

 careful cultivation. 



One tenant, who devoted a portion of 

 his plot to corn for market consumption, 

 raised 90 bushels per acre as the first 

 crop, and as soon as the crop had been 

 harvested, at once planted a second crop 

 on the same land, which j'ielded 50 

 bushels, or a total of 140 bushels per 

 acre in a single season. 



Another tenant, who planted part of 

 his field in Irish potatoes, sold the crop 

 at a rate of $250 per acre. As soon as 

 the first crop was removed he planted 

 the land in sweet potatoes, which he 

 harvested late in the fall, and which 



netted him $275 per acre, or a total of 

 $525 per acre from the potatoes. At 

 least $100 per acre was realized from 

 smaller vegetables planted in the same 

 plot, thus making a total of $625 per 

 acre for this particular portion. 



A German tenant, from the proceeds 

 of his entire 3'ear's work, paid the ex- 

 penses of a family of five, including 

 stock feed for the entire year, and at 

 the end of the season had in the bank 

 $3,600. 



On an experimental acre devoted to 

 sugar cane 40 tons were raised with an 

 imperfect system of cultivation, due to 

 a lack of familiarity with the methods 

 employed by sugar planters generally. 



Another acre devoted to the cultiva- 

 tion of cotton yielded one bale of the 

 staple, although fully one-half of the 

 crop was destroyed by the Mexican boll 

 weevil. Mr. Collins said the yield on 

 this acre, had it not been for its partial 

 destruction, w^ould have been fully two 

 and one-half bales a wonderful yield, 

 all things considered. 



Mr. Collins has recently purchased 

 another tract of land separated from the 

 Collins farm, and is now clearing this 

 with a view to putting into execution 

 the same system he now employs. He 

 has constructed a reservoir which will 

 have a capacity of 8,000,000 gallons of 

 water, which, added to the first reser- 

 voir near the wells, will give Mr. Col- 

 lins a surplus of 12,000,000 gallons of 

 water to be applied as he may direct. 

 In the meantime both reservoirs will 

 be stocked with black bass, and will thus 

 afford the owner considerable sport in 

 the course of a year or two. 



The experiment of Mr. Collins will 

 undoubtedly be followed by a number of 

 enterprising landholders in San Antonio. 



THE AVATER RESOURCES OF THE SOUTHERN 

 APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS. 



INTEREST in the Southern Appa- 

 lachian Mountain region has be- 

 come general during the past three 

 years, mainly through the efforts of 

 public-spirited citizens to have a por- 



tion of the forested lands of this region 

 set aside as a national forest reserve. 

 The matter of establishing a forest re- 

 serve in this section has been pushed 

 vigorously in Congress, and at the last 



