A LESSON FROM SALT LAKE CITY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13728, 18 August 1908, Page 8

A LESSON FROM SALT LAKE CITY.

INTENSIVE CULTIVATION.

An American lecturer, who has recently come into some prominince (Elbert Hubbard, of-Roycroft) keeps a dairy, in which he records his observations between the places he visits. From a recent visit to Bait Lake City a few! extracts are found room for in this! column. Mr Hnbbard does not claim to know anything, practically, .about agriculture, but just dots down ,vhat he sees and he^ars. ''There are thousands of acres of farming land around Salt Lake that arc worth 20C dollars an acre, and more (where there is irrigation water), <simply because the land produces returns on that sum. I want to speak about two very big ideas that the Mormons aro working out. There is no copyright on them, neither were they originated here. The, same ideas, I'm told, are being exploited- in -many places, but the Latter Day Saints appear to have them /by the scruff. The ideas are — the value of summer fallow with deep tillage, and the economic value of dv. arf fruit trees." "The first idea consists in utilising arid land by raising a crop of wheat on it every other year. This system consists in ploughing a farrow from six to seven inches deep. Attached to the plough is a blade that penetrates the ground seven or eight inches more. At the- bottom of the blade is a bulb, similar to the old blind ditch scheme, which .leaves practically an opening in the soil, say^ 14 or 15 inches below the surface. T\ hen the rain comes the water trickles down through the soil, following the opening made by the blade, and fills this little ditch. Sun evaporation only extends to about 10 inches or a foot at most. By dragging the surface with a 'close-tooth harrow, it is kept free from weeds, and every plant is a pump that reaches down into the soil after the moisture. This system keeps all the moisture hi tlie soil and tho root*, of the wheat hunt it out.' Yields of from 20 to 40 bushels an aero aro averaged, according to the season. The land that is being thus utilised (outside of irrigation) was worth only a dollar an acre five years ago, and now the average throughout is over ten dollars." ' /'The second big thing the Mormons an* doing refers to a little thing, viz., dwarf fruit trees. The idea was born m Japan, carried to Paris, where fruit trees were grown in flower pots, and* fond lovers sent peaches on the trees to fair dfmes. An orchard of cherry trees, all three feet high, covered with white blossoms, or red with fruit, is a sight to gladden your heart 'or a year. The advantages are that a tree a year old bears fruit, the tree being, so small that you can look down all over it, allows you to pick off the imperfect spccimeift) and also properly spray it, preventing the San Jose' scale and destroying other parasites. For school gardons or an ornament -md asset to village homes it is supberb. In Ijlanting the ordinary orchard you count on 40 trees to 'an acre. With dwarf trees you plant 1000 to an acre, and cultivate them as you do maize. Most of the apples on an average tree in Now York State are scrubby and imperfect. Apples that weigh a pound are the regulation yield. Acre for acre the dwarf beats the big tree and has it skua a mile. You can #et a little book on dwarf trees' from Orange, Judd and Co., New York, written by F. A. Wangh, a frian who loves a tree as a brother. Dr. Richards, of Prove Utah, also can tell you all about it. The doctor is a genial party, with stubby whiskers, brought up in a re-

ligious atmosphere, and seems to me to know more about eugenics, homology and pomology than any other person I have ever met."