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In the Orange Judd prize contest, merely for the clearest account of a garden, not for results at all, a number of the contestants raised produce at the rate of $150 to $400 per acre and over, even in semi-arid regions; for instance, L. E. Burnham says that he raised on his first garden of about one third of an acre in eastern Massachusetts, garden stuff which he sold to summer cottagers for $61.69.
Years ago, when the supply of government land had seemed inexhaustible, the tide of settlers had swept around the forgotten frontier, on beyond the arid and semi-arid land to the fertile soil and the gold fields on the Pacific Coast. But the time had come when this neglected prairie was the only land left for a land-hungry people. Some way had to be found to make the great arid plains productive.
Arizona, of course, is a huge territory, some 400 by 350 miles. It embraces pure unadulterated desert regions in the west; a large forest tract in the centre; the rest has a semi-arid character, short, scattering grass all over it; to the eye of a stranger a dreary and desolate region!
It is a never ending source of wonder, to those unacquainted with the semi-arid country, how these animals can exist in a land which, to them, seems utterly destitute and barren.
Formerly, acidity was associated in our minds with wet, low-lying land, but within the last twenty years we have learned that it prevails in light seashore sands along the Atlantic shore, in clays, loams and shales stretching to the Appalachian system of mountains, on top of mountain ranges and across foothills to our central states, and through them in stretches to the semi-arid lands of the west.
The Present Status of the Nitrogen Problem. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Reprint, 411. The Search for Leguminous Forage Crops. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Reprint, 478. Leguminous Crops. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 278. Progress in Legume Inoculation. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 315. A Grain for Semi-arid Lands. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 139.
In addition to such work as quarantine against animal and vegetable plagues, and warring against them when here introduced, much efficient help has been rendered to the farmer by the introduction of new plants specially fitted for cultivation under the peculiar conditions existing in different portions of the country. New cereals have been established in the semi-arid West.
The diamond-cutting industry is confined chiefly to Amsterdam, where the work employs several thousand persons, mostly Hebrews, the craft having been handed down from father to son through several generations. Much fine cutting is now done in New York also. In this hot and semi-arid country a pan or fontein was a necessity to the Boer farmer, whose chief dependence was on his sheep and cattle.
Resolutions were adopted covering the entire subject of conservation as shown in one of them as follows: "We agree that the land should be so used that erosion and soil-wash shall cease; that there should be reclamation of arid and semi-arid regions by means of irrigation, and of swamps and overflowed regions by means of drainage; that the waters should be so conserved and used as to promote navigation, to enable the arid regions to be reclaimed by irrigation, and to develop power in the interests of the people; that the forests which regulate our rivers, support our industries, and promote the fertility and productiveness of the soil should be preserved and perpetuated; that the minerals found so abundantly beneath the surface should be so used as to prolong their utility; that the beauty, healthfulness, and habitability of our country should be preserved and increased; that the sources of national wealth exist for the benefit of the people, and that monopoly thereof should not be tolerated."
A number of the streams of the semi-arid lands of the West do not discharge more than five per cent of the rainfall. Other things being equal, which will afford the larger proportion of run-off, a region underlain with granite rock or with coarse sandstone? grass land or forest? steep slopes or level land? a well-drained region or one abounding in marshes and ponds? frozen or unfrozen ground?
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