HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 115 
where there is 5 per cent of alkali. We also found alfalfa growing in 
the Sahara desert in the same sort of soil. We are selecting these 
crops and breeding up our native crops to greater resistance. 
Mr. Scorr. Why do you say it will require an increased appropria- 
tion to keep this work going on? Why can not you go on with the 
same money you have? : 
Mr. Woops. We can, but we can not do anything more than to 
keep it going. 
e CHAIRMAN. There must be some portions of that work at least 
complete; some problems solved. The statement that it can not live 
without increasing the appropriation is what strikes the committee 
as queer. 
Mr. Woops. I did not intend to make that statement in that sense. 
The Cuatrman. You say to keep it alive. It is the same thing. 
Mr. Scorr. That implies that unless you get the appropriation the 
work will stop. My iden is this, that if you keep it going on, why 
can you not keep it going on at some considerable siend 
Mr. Woops. Yes; it does not seem to me desirable to go at a slow 
speed, the slow speed we are going. It is not profitable, because the 
man who is doing that work can do three times as much work as he is 
now doing if he had more money to do it with. 
Mr. Scorr. We sympathize with you in your enthusiasm. 
aa Bowrs. What is the increase, Mr. Woods; I did not under- 
stan 
Mr. Woops. Five hundred dollars. 
The Cuarrman. Is not this sort of work naturally slow? You can 
not go beyond a certain speed in these researches—you must feel your 
way along? 
Mr. Woops. Yes; but at the same time you can accomplish a great 
deal in a very short time. In this alkali resistant work we could 
accomplish in five years what it would probably take ten or fifteen 
years to do with a smaller amount of money, because we aim to 
increase the number of places to make the selections from. 
Mr. Bowin. Is it true that at the beginning of your experiments 
you can not go as fast as you can afterwards, after you are a little 
further along and find out more about it? Is not that true? 
Mr. Woops. Yes, sir. We usually start in on work of this kind 
with an expenditure of $200 or $300 as a side proposition. A man 
makes a few examinations, probably costing practically nothing. The 
next year we find that there is really something in that, and that there 
is enough in it to warrant our putting a man on it, and then it develops, 
and that is the way these lines of work grow. And after two or three 
years of such study as this alkali problem we see how we can profit- 
ably increase that work to very much larger proportions and get 
quicker results. 
Mr. Bowre. It is true you will reach your limit some time or other? 
Mr. Woops. Yes; and finish the problem, as we have done in an 
innumerable number of cases. I have not discussed the finished 
problems. 
Mr. Bowre. It must be interesting to know what becomes of the 
appropriations granted for finished problems. ; 
Mir. Woops. It would go to other problems. If we finish the alkali 
problem, we might apply the money to the corn problem. 
Mr. Haveen. What problem has been finished in the last year and 
dropped from the appropriation ? 
