32 RANGE IMPROVEMENT IN CENTRAL TEXAS. 
very few of the sods died when transplanted two or three days in 
advance of good rains, either in the early spring or autumn months. 
THE CULTIVATION OF PASTURE GRASSES. 
As already stated, the reports made by Messrs. Middleton, Parra- 
more, and Bryan show that at the end of the first twelve months’ work 
substantial improvement had been secured, and that at the end of the 
second year’s work the gain in the two years had been quite 100 per cent, 
notwithstanding the very distressing drought of 1898 and the scarcely 
less protracted and severe spell of 1899. The same character of treat- 
ment of the same pastures was continued in 1900. In the early spring 
of that year the harrows were started, the disk in pasture No. 2 and 
subdivision No. 9. In the former year the disk had been set so as to 
cut very nearly in a straight line and not more than 3 to 4 inches 
deep. In this second year the lever was thrown forward so as to give 
to the disk an additional curve, and weights were added with the view 
to forcing the disks quite 4 to 5 inches deep, and so loosening the 
ground below the grass roots. In pasture or subdivision No. 7 there 
was so little grass or weeds on the ground when the first harrowing 
was done in 1898 that it was not difficult to force the teeth into the 
ground without weights. The next spring practically every acre was 
covered, more or less, either with grass or weeds, largely the latter, 
and in consequence the frame of the harrow had to be weighted. To 
that end heavy logs were fastened on top of it, but it was found neces- 
sary to go over and over some areas where the grass and weeds were 
thickest and rankest. The third spring it was found that the further 
use of the iron-tooth harrow was no longer practicable. On every 
part of subdivision No. 7 there was a comparatively heavy growth of 
grass or weeds, now largely the former, and no possible weighting of 
the harrow frame could force the teeth sufficiently deep into the 
ground and hold them there to do any good in the way of scarifying 
the surface and loosening the earth about the grass roots. Hence it 
was that the iron-tooth harrow was discarded and the disk harrow 
used instead on all three of the treated pastures. In order to secure 
what was expected to produce the best results, the lever was moved 
forward still further than in the year before, weights were placed in 
the disk-harrow frame, and the ground was cut from 5 to 6 inches 
deep and more decidedly loosened than before to that depth. In the 
later summer and early autumn months of 1898, and again in 1899, 
young grass roots were noticeably abundant all over the cultivated 
pastures. As this was not nearly to a like extent the case in the sev- 
eral pastures which had not been treated, it was taken to mean that 
these numerous young grass roots were in direct consequence of the 
special treatment given to the three pastures specified. 
In the spring of 1900 Prof. Thomas A. Williams, Assistant Agros- 
