HISTORY OF THE THIRD YEAR’S WORK. 88 
tologist (now deceased), visited the station and made a very pains- 
taking and thorough inspection of every part of it, including the 
pastures. He was specially satisfied with the evidences mentioned of 
the value of the surface cultivation of the pastures, and was very positive 
in the expression that such evidences of the successful application 
of the theories on which the work was predicated were convincing. 
Later, in March, 1901, Prof. C. L. Shear, who in the meantime had 
succeeded Professor Williams in the office of Assistant Agrostologist, 
made an official visit to, and inspection of, the station. The effort 
was made during his visit to again have an inspection of its pastures 
made by Messrs. Middleton, Parramore, and Bryan, but Colonel Par- 
ramore was absent on his own ranch in another county, and Mr. Bryan 
was in Austin in attendance on the Texas legislature. In company, 
however, with Mr. Middleton and the special'agent in charge, Pro- 
fessor Shear went over the pastures very carefully and thoroughly, 
and concurred fully with Mr. Middleton’s expressions of opinion tnat 
the three cultivated pastures, in many ways, were much better than 
any of those not cultivated. Not only did they have on them more 
grass, but the variety was greater, and the grass was distinctly of a 
brighter color and more vigorous looking. Before the return of 
Messrs. Parramore and Bryan to Abilene the term of the Mercnant 
lease of the station section terminated and the three years’ work was 
brought to a finish; hence no final inspection of the pastures was made 
by the original committee. Mr. Middleton made a report in which he 
stated that, as a result of his several inspections of the said pastures 
in 1898, 1899, and 1900, and again in 1901, he was certain that in the 
three years ending March 20, 1901, their capacity for sustaining stock 
had been considerably more than doubled—a result attributable dis- 
tinctly, in his opinion, to the treatment they had received in the mat- 
ter of cultivating some of them, as stated, and in the systematic 
resting of all of them according to the original plans. During the 
last week of March, 1901, a special committee of three well-known 
farmers, who owned farms and pastures in the immediate neighbor- 
hood of the station, and who, during the entire three years, had 
taken deep interest in the work and had watched it closely, were 
requested to make, and did make, a final inspection of the station pas- 
tures. They stated in their report that they had been well acquainted 
with the land included in the station during all of the three years it 
had been in the hands of the Department of Agriculture, througn its 
special agent, and that, as the result of the treatment of the tract 
under his direction, the capacity of the pastures for sustaining live 
stock, year in and year out, without other food than such as was 
afforded by the pastures themselves, was considerabiy more than 100 
per cent greater at the end than at the beginning of the three years’ 
work. 
15015—No. 183—02——3 
