^ CoivORADo Experiment Station. 
m^y be obtained by simply firming the seed on the soil and covering 
for a day or two with a thin cloth of any sort which can be kept 
moist. A similar observation concerning the depth of sowing is 
made by the California Station in Bulletin 125. 
The first season’s experience with this plant \Vas on a poorly 
drained, alkali soil, and while for reasons already given, the experi¬ 
ment was not as satisfactory as one might wish, the results sufficed 
to show that the plant will do well under such conditions and fur¬ 
nish a large amount of fodder. Some of the single plants attained 
a diameter of seven feet. The garden experiment was in the main 
more successful, though less attention was paid to it. The plants 
seeded heavily and were not gathered, but left where they grew. 
They proved to be easily killed by freezing—it is stated in the Cali¬ 
fornia bulletin that the plants will endure a temperature of 14° F. 
below the freezing point. 
My plants in the garden plot all perished during the winter, 
but the seed came up very freely the following spring, and this little 
plantation maintained itself for the next five seasons with but little 
care and without other water than our usual rainfall. 
The California station made observations on the amount of 
rainfall necessary for this plant to make some growth, not a luxuri¬ 
ant growth whereby single plants attain a diameter of twelve or 
more feet, but sufficient when planted in rows two feet apart to 
cover the ground. ’ They state that “one-fifth of an acre, sown in 
December, yielded 100 pounds of seed. This plot was cut in Sep¬ 
tember and, cured for fodder, yielded at the rate of five and one-half 
tons of hay per acre. Three such cuttings were practicable on this 
light, granitic, sandy loam, underlaid by hard pan, during the driest 
season known.” The rainfall for this season, i897-’98, is given as 
4.75 inches. The plant makes a remarkable growth with a very 
small supply of water. The writer of the bulletin referred to states 
further that, “on unirrigated land there was no green fodder-plant 
excepting saltbush \A. semibaccata), in the entire region.” The 
rainfall during the seasons that the plant grew in my garden with¬ 
out irrigation was not noted, and while it was certainly larger than 
this recorded at one of the California sub-stations, it was not suffi¬ 
cient for the growth of our ordinary grasses. 
This plant grows on the ground, not erect like alfalfa, but 
spreads out into a circular mass varying in diameter. Well-grown 
individual plants in our plot attained a diameter of seven feet, but 
single plants are recorded as having attained, in California, a diame¬ 
ter of even eighteen feet. The stems are slender and leafy. 
The habit of the plant makes it hard to cut, and the leaves are 
easily lost in making hay—this plant is, of course, not to be consid¬ 
ered as a forage plant where alfalfa can be grown—but its drought 
