14 RANGE IMPROVEMENT IN CENTRAL TEXAS. 
uplands,” being level stretches, as a rule, above the valley levels, 
though in the north parts of subdivision Nos. 1, 5, 7, and 8 were 
rough hills which were considerably higher than the surrounding 
lands. The purpose of taking in these rough valley hills was to make 
it certain that a lot of very poor and unpromising land, as well as some 
average level uplands and some valley lands, might be included. As 
Professor Georgeson explained. 
If these hill lands, rough, gravelly, and rocky, very poor in quality, and now almost 
destitute of grass or grass roots, can be reclaimed, it will mean much more to farmers 
and stockmen than the reclaiming of level and comparatively rich valley lands will 
mean to them. , 
How well he succeeded in his efforts to locate the grass and forage- 
plant station on land below the average of the neighboring lands in 
favorable position, quality of soil, and quantity of grassand grass roots 
then in sight, the significant remarks of visitors to the station and the 
further facts to be hereafter stated will assist in determining. 
Ex-Congressman J. V. Cockrell, of the Thirteenth Congressional 
district of Texas, visited the station in 1899, and remarked: ‘‘ You 
have here about the roughest and poorest section of land in all this 
part of the country;” and it was quite the expected and the usual thing 
for visitors to the station, in 1898, to notice and comment on the fact 
that the land was evidently not selected with the view to securing the 
best. The valleys and uplands, outside of the hills, were of fair 
average quality as compared with the other rough lands in that part 
of Taylor County, but the hills mentioned were exceptionally rough 
and the soil very thin. It was in order to take in these hills, and also 
some of the richer small valleys, anda fair average of the uplands, 
that the 640 acres were selected in the very irregular shape indicated 
(fig. 1). 
PLAN OF EXPERIMENTS. 
Having secured the land, Professor Georgeson returned to Wash- 
ington, and Prof. Jared G. Smith, then Assistant Chief of the Division 
of Agrostology, took charge of the work; but in a short time, his 
services being more essential elsewhere, he was recalled to Washing- 
ton, and the writer was placed in charge as special agent, and continued 
in charge to the latter part of March, 1901, when, the three years’ work 
having been completed, the station was restored to Mr. Merchant. 
The section was divided by survey lines into six portions of 80 acres 
each, and one of 70 acres, the remaining 10 acres being set apart asa 
grass garden to be devoted to the cultivation of grass and forage 
plants. It was originally contemplated that all of the division surveys, 
as shown in the diagram, should be fenced, but in fact, those indicated © 
by the dotted lines were not. The five pastures and garden fenced 
included 330 acres, and the four subdivisions not divided by fences, 
