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ei of the west
flaoe tfede Desem
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rTlHAT a plant could grow xvtthout
I water would seem to the average
person a most outlandish statement.
Perhaps one would admit the possibility
of some freak plants so subsisting, but would
balk at extending his credence to include such
waterraving plants as wheat, for instance, or
alfalfa.
Yet this not only can be done, but is be
ing done on quite a large scale in arid parts
of the western United States.
In parts of the Great Basin, lying in Ne
vada, California and Utah regions in which
little or no rain falls there have been grown
this year thousands of bushels of grain.
So far has the science of dry-farming
progressed that if one can reach an under
ground water supply for household purposes
FEW of th wondera of thla twentieth century hare
been fraught with euch Mtoundlnt features aa
thoee relaUnr to hybrldlilng and selecting In
plant life.
New plant have been created by taking advantage
of the knowledge of tex a applied to botany; peclally
elected aeeda have caused to bloom fleldi that had
been barren.
In California, the wliard Burbank haa actually
created many new varieties of Towers and fruits by
hybridisation has caused plants of altogether different
natures to combine and produce a plant child charac
terised by the best virtues of each.
In New York state, a professor, devoting his genius
mainly to roses, has even excelled the California man
In new oreations.
An Englishman has not only caused four grains of
corn to grow on a cob where one grew before; not only
doubled the yield of wheat per acre by selection of
seed, but has induced lasy, good-for-nothing weeds to
learn Industry from the thrifty oat and become them
selves right honorable oat producers.
Would It seem possible for more to be done?
Wouldn't It be more wonderful If one could cause
a seed to put forth roots and grow to a healthy plant
and finally yield a goodly store of grain In a dry,
sandy soil. In a region where little or no rain falls the
year around?
Assuredly.
A recent addition to agricultural literature Is the
phrase "dry farming." As to Just what It means there
is still some difference of opinion.
Ordinarily, it is understood to mean farming In an
arid or semi-arid region without Irrigation.
But this is somewhat confusing. In many of the
co-called "arid" regions there Is some rainfall, and In
some of them Irrigation is used to some extent in
connection with dry farming.
But the most astonishing fact Is that It has been
found possible to grow grain where hardly any rain
falls and where Irrigation Is not practiced.
How Is this done?
BACK TO DARWIN
The whole proposition reverts to the theory elabo
rated by Darwin, and known In a tentative way by phil
osophers before him, of "the survival of the fittest."
In all the universe this law holds. Only the fit
nay, the fittest survives.
Ia our everyday business life we see the rreat law
(ace to -face. The strong; and aggressive push ahead,
advance, accomplish, prosper.
The weaklUgs fall by the wayside. They die, many
of them. Others simply become absorbed.
V They are not lost entirely. The force little though
It be that remains In them serves Its purpose in the
lower plane. Should they die, that force becomes a,
part of the great cosmlo whole, to become manifest
again in new energy.
It has another chance. No energy Is lost Still, the
fittest survive.
Now, take a seed.
Suppose you were to take a whole bushel of oats,
go out into the heart of a barren valley, plough up
that hot. sandy soil and there sow your seed?
Would any of these seeds come up?
Yes, more than you would. Imagine; The life pent
up In those seeds would strive for existence would
put forth the noblest efforts to maintain Itsetf.
Seising hold of the minutest particle of moisture
that might be In that sandy soli, the. seeds would
swell,, burst, put forth their sheets and try to grow.
Such Is the desire to live the Instinct what you will.
' Few would last until the harvesting time. The hot
sun, the lack of moisture would prove too much for
' them. They would wilt and die.
But some wotld survive the'fittestl
THE OREGON! SUNDAY
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he can profitably raise crops on the "dry"
land. Yet the government experts who are
pursuing dry-farming studies do not encourage
settlement, which must usually be attended
with hardships.
By conserving the rainfall during the
rainy season in ditches it is found possible to
grow crops in semi-arid parts.
And even where hardly any rain falls,
seed specially selected or hybridized for the
purpose is found to yield crops.
No romance, no tragedy of nature, Is grander than
this of the simple seed which, surmounting such great
difficulties, persists In living.
And finally comes the harvest time. Noble accom
plishment! How dearly earned, how worthy to live, is
this handful of seeds all that survived of the bushel.
They ars of the stuff of which Napoleons, Dantes,
Jobs are made. And these seeds are capable of repro
ducing others.
Well worth preserving they are these seeds.
Take them the following 6prlng and sow thorn on
this same arid soil, and they will every one spring up
and battle to maturity, and each will have its suc
cessorsa sturdy brood, as sturdy as itself.
Thus, year after year, can the quantity of hardy
seeds be Increased, until you have bushels and bushels
of them. And taking these for stock you have oats
that may be grown year after year on arid or semi
arid soil.
Thus, by select selection of seed is dry fanning pos
sible. But It would be a long, tedious process to raise oats'
in this way an unprofitable one.
Hybridization would hasten the date of profitableness.
Taking a few hardy seeds and with them germinating
He Groforfh
STRANGE, isn't it, to what pains a learned
man will go, now and then, apparently just
to gratify a curiosity?
A striking instance is that of the coterie
of eminent physicians and scientists of Germany
who have recently compared notes on the relative
rate of growth of various parts of the human
anatomy.
They have not exhausted the subject it holds,
in fact, food for many subsequent conferences
but have brought out a number of facta which
show that there are other ways of amusing the
scientific mind than trying to trace lineage back to
the anthropoid ape and seeking to prove that ghosts
really exist.
Medical science hopes for very little profit from
these latest delvings; but that good old dame, Curi
osity, will get many a pleasant hour from them.
IT WAS Hugo who remarked that the learned mind
once In a while gets weary of incessant digging
Into the unknown for momentous facts, and, to
amuse Itself, twists the elay of scientific research
into a fantastic visage, then laughs at It like an
amused child.
This would seem to be exactly what these men did
when they tried to determine the relative growth of
members of the human body.
Almost every one has notloed how much faster the
beard of a normal man grows than the hair on his
head.
But these men have gone farther and tried to de-,
tergi(nt how much faster U Mftw.-- -
It has been learned that the. frequenoy of shearing
Is the principal element that accounts for the differ
ence. A man gets his hair trimmed once a month;
his beard shaved once a day or two days.
Therefore, the rate of growth of the beard is about
thirty times as fast as that of the hair.
Another peculiar, fact: The beard grows faster
when one la awake than when asleep. If man stays
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JOURNAL ; PORTLAND, SUNDAY ' MORNING, SEPTEMBER t5, 1907
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others of a less hardy variety, It Is possible to Induce
the entire lot to grow on soli without moisture.
This, to a gTeat extent, has been done.
But it is mainly in conservation of moisture that dry
farming has been made to pay.
When this system Is used, crops are not raised with
out moisture, but there are adopted methods of cultiva
tion which help to conserve all the moisture which falls
on the land and make It available for crops instead of
allowing It to run off or be evaporated from the land
surface.
In its general features, "dry farming" consists in
deep plowing, thorough cultivation and. In some In
stances, the use of surface packers and other Implements,
cf Parti cf
up all night, his beard will be a third longer in the
morning than if. he had gone to bed at a seemly hour.
And if he has engaged In mental labor all night,
his beard will grow faster than If he has simply been
to a ball or out with friends.
This Is because of the greater amount of circula
tion in the face when one is thinking deeply; the
brain needs an unusual amount of blood when It Is
working hard.
And the greater the amount of blood in the face
the more nourishment will be Imparted to the beard
roots and the faster the growth.
It has even seemed worth while to oompute the
length that one's beard would reach If It continued
to grow at a normal rate during a lifetime. One phy
sician, taking a twentieth of an inch as the growth
of the normal beard in a day, has computed that It
would grow an Inch in twenty days, or eighteen
inches In a year. Now, take forty years as the aver
age bearded age of a man, ' and It appears that each
man grows in a lifetime 1080 Inches of whiskers.
Ninety feet!
FANCIFUL FIGURES
This is fancy, of course; after reaching a certain
length the beard grows slowly.
Then as to finger nails.
In the summer time, it Is learned, the flngrer nails
this Is true, too, of the beard arrow faster than In
winter.
The average time that is taken by each finger nail
to attain its full length is four and a half months.
What does this mean for a man, say, who has
reached his seventieth year? That he has grown 186
full sets of finger nails.
The average length of a finger nail Is a half Inch.
Therefore, a man of 70 has grown 7 feet inehes of
nail on each finger, and on all his Angers and thumbs
an aggregate of almost eighty feet.
There are interesting sidelights on the relative
growth of finger nails. For instance, the nail on the
middle finger grows faster than any of the other nails,
and those on the thumb slowest And the nails on
the right hand grow faster than those on the left
band unless the person happens to be left-handed.
Cfcrtfer near
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which are supposed to compact the soil in such a way
that It will retain moisture. Crops are raised only In
alternate years, although the cultivation continues every
year
In this way a large part of the moisture which falls
during the fallow year Is saved for the use of the crop
the succeeding year. The principal crops raised are grain,
potatoes and corn, wheat being far In the lead In acre
age. The yield Is In general about the same as In more
humid sections of the United States.
At some experiment farms maintained by the govern
ment and Individual states crops are raised by what Is
termed "winter irrigation," that is, by the application
of water in the winter or spring, when flood waters are
the Bocb.
This is because use Induces growth; the nail on
the middle linger Is apt to do much more scraping
than the others, consequently Is worn off faster and
must be more often restored.
At birth a child Is one-twentieth of the weight
It should attain at maturity. For the first week it
loses, due to the process of natural elimination, and
bathing, and about the tenth day begins to gain weight.
At 40 a man reaches the acme of his weight, and
at 60 declines.
This decline keeps up till he is 80. During the
period between to and 80 he is apt to lose twelve to
fifteen pounds, according to the surplus amount he
has to lose.
Between the twelfth Sand the fifteenth year a girl
gains In weight more than a boy; between the four
teenth and sixteenth year the boy gains.
There is a difference between the weight of a
male's and a female's heart; the former weighs ten
to twelve ounces, the latter eight to ten ounces.
In the male the proportion of the heart to the
body Is as one to 169; in the female, one to 14.
Does this mean that men are capable of loving
more than women, or simply that they need bigger
engines to force blood through their bodies for their
more strenuous occupations? The learned doctors do
not explain.
Unlike the rest of the body, which ceases to grow
at the twentieth year, the heart continues Its growth
up to an advanced stage of life. The male heart con
tinues its growth later in life than that of the woman.
By the way, did you ever notice that tall men have
smaller heads in proportion to their body else than
short men? It is true.
Perhaps that is why small people often have the
largest brains and are capable of the most Intense
thought.
The male brain usually grows larger than the
female brain; the usual proportion is as forty-nine
ounces to forty-four ounces.
After the seventh year when the asre of reason
comes one's brain arrows much faster than any other
part of the body. This is because It la used more than .
the others.
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ususlly available; by summer Irrigation, where water M
applied throughout the growing season as It la needed
also somo small areas by the dry-farm methods described)
above, for the purposes of comparison with crops rtisedl
by other methoda.
Government farms are locsted at Cheyenne and Newf
castle, Wyo.. and at Eads, Col.
Moat of the dry farming Is being don la the OrsaJ
Basin region a portion of the great depression betweeit
the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.
To the north of the Great Basin Ilea the dralnag)
baaln of the Columbia liver, while to the southward that
drainage la collected by the Colorado river.
This dry land lies chiefly in Utah, Nevada, Oregoit
and California. The water finds no outlet to the Ocean
but collecta in various lakes and sinks, from which tt
evaporates.
In the eastern part of the Great Basin area, where)
most of the dry farming la done, the mesas are sometimes)
surrounded by relatively barren hills, which afford neltheg)
water nor timber, and yield but little range.
The first farming settlements In the region were mad
along the courses of streams, where water could be)
diverted for irrigation, and for a long time no end
thought farming without irrigation possible.
From Indications which he observed, Carl Scofleld, tj
expert for the United States Department of Agricultural
recently expressed the opinion that the acreage devoted
to dry farming in recent years had lncreassd mora rapid
ly even than the Irrigated acreage. , ,
DEVELOPED IN UTAH
In Toole county, Utah, there is a broad valley,
which dry farming Is now practiced to a considerable)
extent. In the northern part of Juab county and
south of Utah lake there has been a very rapid da
velopment In dry farming in the last few years, f
The importance of dry farming as a factor la the
development of Utah has been recognised by the people
of that state to the extent that the Legislature haa
made direct appropriations to establish and maintain
experiment farms for working out scientifically the)
beet method of tillage and for testing crops and varl
etles to find out those best suited to local conditions. '
Six such farms have been established In represent-
tlve parts of the state; each contains forty acres ,ol
land. Is equipped with necessary machinery and 14
well fenced. No attempt to keep livestock on thott
farms has been made. "
Alfalfa has been grown with irrigation In the
Great Basin for years, but recently It has been tasted
rather extensively in the dry lands. vVi'-
Indlcatlons are that valuable drought-resisting va
rletles of alfalfa could be developed In a very ahort
time If proper attention were given to selecting seed
from individual plants or even from some whole flld
that appeared to thrive well on 'a limited supply of.
mo 1 at u re.
The main obatacle in the way of profitable dry)
farming Is that while land may be susceptible to ther
growth of crops, it may not be suitable for residences
Mr. Scofleld says: "It Is very doubtful whether ai
settler would be safe In attempting to make a home)
and start a farm on even the most promising; of these?
dry lands. ' 'k '4.
' Evan though one might be able to raise grata aropa
one could hardly live on a farm without garden Crops
and to raise them would require some irrigation. i ;
"One of the most urgent needs for further de-
velopment of dry farming," says Mr. Scofleld, "la at
hydrographlo survey for the purpose of determining?
the extent and location of the underground water re
sources. Otherwise, settlers must either remain lr
Immediate oontact with an existing water aupply est
waste money on blind attempts to find water : fo)
themselves." 'i ,
ENGLAND'S MOST COVETED
ORDER
OF ALL the decorations In the gift Of present-da?)
sovereigns, none is so highly valued as that Of the
Order of the Garter, with which King Edward of
England has Invested King Haakon and the Mikado of
Japan. Indeed, it is rarely bestowed outside of England,
except on rulers of nations. For Instance, Napoleon III
got the garter when he became England's ally, as d!4
the Mikado more recently.
Although the most coveted of English orders, the
origin of the Garter is really a mystery.
Conflicting authorities assign the foundation ef tht
order either to the 23d of April, St. George's day, 13 w,
or to the same festival five years later, while the popular
anecdote associated with it is that at a court ceremony a
lady either the queen, the countess or aaiuoury, or th
Countess of Kent happened to drop her garter, whku
was nicked un bv Kins: Edward III. who. observing h.
disposition to laugh among the bystanders, exclaimed, i,
his royal displeasure, "Hon! solt qui msl y pense" (Dis
graced be ne who thinks ia or id. .
The reigning monarch is, of course, ex-cfllclo the sov
ereign of the Order of the Garter. .
At first the garter was made of light blue silk. ut th
which Is' now given is made of dark blue, velvet; it i :
worn on the left leg a little below the kn.t
The Order of the Garter as an order Of chivalry r,ft t;
very deep religious significance, ; Jt Is, or slu.til.i i ,
attended by religious ceremonies of a very pri
ornate character, and it was reported In the iat r(
that a certain nobleman hesitated aa. to ct.t ., t i ,
honor on account of its having beea oonferr4 lt .
Oriental potentate. . .
The position of Queen Alexandra, who as la-ly t t t
garter flies her flag above her stall In St. George s a,
Is without precedent among quevns consort, siu
the early days ladlea were partially admitted it,u, i
order under the title of datnee 4e la fraterniUt a ,
George. This custom, aoweyer, was abolished la the t
of Henry VUt .-..-:;; :L:.:- ;V- .
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