THE KANGE RESERVE TRACT. 29 



AREA B. 



This area extends directly east and west, contiguous to the south 

 side of Area C. Xo seed whatever was sown here, it being intended 

 to determine what effect scarifying the surface would have on the 

 development of native vegetation. A fine-tooth harrow was drawn 

 over the area in an east and west direction. 



AREA D. 



This space is 200 feet in width and located between C and E. Xo 

 seed was sown and no cultural operations performed. The object in 

 laying out the ground in this way, with an uncultivated and unseeded 

 strip between two cultivated and seeded ones, was to determine, 

 should the seeded plats prove successful, whether the grasses sown 

 would spread naturally over unseeded areas. 



The cultural operations are vastly more simple than those usually 

 employed in the grass investigations conducted by the Division. This 

 is necessarily so because improvement of the range at the least pos- 

 sible expense is the desideratum here, and not the growing of the 

 greatest amount possible per acre. The production of forage is so 

 small here, at best, that one is obliged to measure his pasture by square 

 miles rather than bj' acres, and the operations in range improvement 

 must be on a correspondingly large scale. It has been deemed wise, 

 therefore, to operate simply, but on comparativel}' large areas. The 

 only implements used are disk harrows and fine-tooth harrows. Every 

 possible combination of these has been used. In some cases the seed 

 was sown directh' on the mesa, with no previous preparation of the 

 soil; in others, disking or harrowing preceded planting. In all cases 

 the seed was covered by disking or harrowing, or by both combined. 

 As far as possible all cultural operations extended lengthwise of the 

 long strips, and therefore diagonally across the washes. The gangs 

 of the disk harrow were set so as to ridge up the ground as much as 

 possible. This method spreads the run-off of water over more land, 

 and the ridged condition holds it to a greater extent than any other 

 method would do. 



A small grass garden has been started on the university grounds, 

 in which nearly all of the varieties sown on the reservation have been 

 planted in small quantities. Here moderate irrigation is practiced. 

 One of the objects of this garden is to form a check upon the seeded 

 I)lats on the reservation. 



Owing to the diversitj^ of climatic and soil conditions which obtain 

 in southern Arizona, it has been thought wise to extend operations 

 over a greater variety of territory than would be jDossible in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of the University. Consequently apian was inaugurated 

 to cooperate in the matter of range improvement with farmers and 

 ranchers who were located in favorable situations. Aside from the 



