must be paid for each from year to year. The tests were made with two lots of lambs very similar in breeding and conformation. They will be repeated and will be tested on a commercial scale with field cooperators.

Project 27. Pasturage and Silage Production for Sheep. Hatch Fund. Project Leader, C. E. Fleming.

Silage. Sunflowers for silage were planted again in the spring of 1926; and at the close of the fiscal year gave assurance of a heavy tonnage of this useful form of silage, with an opportunity for additional tests of its feeding value in the winter of 1926-1927.

Pasturage, the Paddock System. The area in blue grass and clover pasture for sheep on the Station Farm was slightly increased. As in previous years it was handled in small units, paddocks of limited acreage; which were grazed in rotation. As a result the sheep went on each small pasture when it was almost knee deep in rich grass and clover. At this stage it was growing so rapidly that it was hard for the sheep to eat it down enough to check the growth. This made it possible to keep the sheep on each paddock far longer than they could have been kept there if the grass had been short when they went on; for it is a fact that grass several inches high grows far more rapidly than grass only an inch or two in height.

Because of the vigorous well-rooted turf that formed under these grazing conditions each paddock that had been grazed down recovered rapidly when the sheep were taken off; and the carrying capacity of the whole pasture, subdivided as it was by fences, was very far above what the same acreage would carry if all in one piece.

Local owners of sheep were so interested in this experiment that they worked out plans for cooperative tests on a large scale with thousands of sheep. The seriously depleted condition of Nevada sheep ranges makes this a matter of unusual importance. It is important, too, in other ways; for the labor cost of caring for the sheep on the paddocks is small, and it is evidently possible to carry grades and breeds superior to those used on the range and to get from them far heavier yields of wool

Project 16. An Unidentified Hemorrhagic Disease in Cattle. Adams Fund. Project Leader, Dr. Edward Records.

A brief history of the work done upon this project has been given earlier in this report. Part of it will bear repetition, however; for the project has been carried on to an outstanding success through years of difficult and discouraging work.

After the cause of the disease had been discovered by Doctors Records and Vawter its cure was attempted, and a therapeutic serum for this purpose was prepared whose success was clearly shown by the fact that it reduced the losses in animals treated by fully 75 per cent. In fact, while practically all animals attacked by this disease die if not treated, all or nearly all will recover if they are treated with the serum before the worst symptoms develop.

Methods of preparing this serum have been so far perfected in the Nevada Station that commercial houses are now ready to begin its routine preparation and sale.

Work upon this project will not terminate at this point, however, for there is every prospect that it may be quite as possible to prevent

the occurrence of the disease as to cure it after it has begun to run its course. Vaccines or allied preparations for the prevention of many diseases have been devised, and there is good reason for hoping that experiments conducted in the past year will lead to the discovery of such an immunizing agent.

Already this project has made a most important contribution to the understanding of the cause of this disease and to its cure. The discovery of methods of prevention will mark the complete success of the project and will form another splendid demonstration of the value of scientific research to agriculture.

Project 22. Poisonous Range Plants. Adams Fund. Project Leader, C. E. Fleming, Assisted by Mr. Miller and Dr. Vawter.

The importance of this project has increased as the good forage plants, shrubs and grasses of the sheep and cattle ranges have been eaten out more closely and the carrying capacity of the ranges has fallen off.

Losses due to poisonous plants under present conditions probably exceed losses due to all forms of disease and to predatory animals. Deaths from this cause constitute the tragedy of the range country. There has been but little snowfall for several winters past. The ranges have been drier than usual and the growth of forage has been scanty in spring and summer

Under these conditions hungry grazing animals have eaten plants that they ordinarily avoid, and fatal poisoning has followed. Plants never before suspected of being poisonous have come under suspicion, and have been shown to be poisonous if eaten in large quantities. Some of the common woody shrubs of the range that have always been considered harmless, or even good feed at certain seasons, have been shown to contain poisonous principles in dangerous quantities.

In the course of the past year a large number of tests with a considerable number of plants yielded information of high value which will be published in bulletin form for distribution to Nevada stockmen. The completion of studies of the poisonous principle of the common chokecherry, Prunus demissa, was marked by the publication of Experiment Station Bulletin 109, "The Common Chokecherry, Prunus demissa, as a Plant Poisonous to Sheep and Cattle," which presents fully the results of a long series of observations and tests made by the Station with this common poisonous shrub of the mountain canyons. Project 29. Studies of Reclamation and Irrigation in the Las Vegas Valley. Purnell Fund. Project Leader, F. L. Bixby, Assisted by George Hardman. One of the most interesting regions in the State of Nevada is the valley surrounding the city of Las Vegas in the southern portion of the State. It is a region differing in almost every condition of soil, climate and products from northern and central Nevada. It is so far to the south and so much lower in elevation than the rest of the State that it is possible to grow cotton, figs, pomegranates, and a very wide range of other products of high potential value.

Moreover, it has such railroad connections that access to large city markets to the east or the west is assured.

Because of the deficiency in rainfall nothing will grow in this region except under irrigation; and there is little surface run-off in

the form of streams. This has led to the boring of a large number of artesian wells and the development of a quantity of water from underground sources. Many problems have arisen in connection with the flow of the artesian wells and with the use of the water from them in the production of crops; and there are other special problems in the reclamation and fertilization of the desert soils.

Up to the beginning of the past fiscal year the Station has confined its preliminary work in connection with this project to studies of the flow of the wells, studies of the effect of pumping upon wells that did not flow or in which the flow was too little to be of value, studies of the source of the water, the geology of the region, and the relationship between the flow of the wells and the rain and snowfall upon the nearby mountains. To these studies were added tests of the effect of

Weighing Device for Hay. The track runs the entire length of the barn in front of the cows and all hay fed to and removed from the mangers of each group is weighed and recorded.

various commercial fertilizers on the soils and on the growth of crops adapted to the region. In these tests pot experiments were supplemented by field trials in cooperation with local farmers.

The passage of the Purnell Act has made it possible to extend the scope of these studies and to develop them on a larger scale. The project has been financed for many years under the federal Hatch Fund. At the beginning of the past fiscal year it was transferred from the Hatch Fund to the Purnell Fund. At the same time the Station was very fortunate in securing the cooperation of the Union Pacific Railroad in working out a plan for plot tests of fertilizers, methods

of soil treatment, green manuring, crops adapted to the reclamation of raw desert soils, and allied topics.

The railroad granted the Station for these experiments a lease of ten acres of valuable land not yet reclaimed, with adequate water from artesian sources. This land was cleared, fenced, planted in part, and laid out in plots for a long series of experiments. These tests promise to add materially to the existing information concerning methods of reclaiming desert land and fitting it for crop production in the Las Vegas Valley.

Cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Public Roads made it possible in the course of the past fiscal year to carry to completion the studies of the flow of artesian wells and the increase of flow that can be developed by pumping. It also became possible to initiate studies of flood control and drainage in the Muddy Valley where crops of very high potential value may be produced.

Project 30. Land Utilization and Farm Development Studies. Purnell Fund. Project Leader, F. B. Headley.

The purpose of this project has been fully indicated earlier in this report. It grew out of a dearth of information concerning the profits. to be derived from various farm enterprises under Nevada conditions. The information was greatly needed in conferences upon the feasibility of the proposed Spanish Springs extension to the Newlands Reclamation Project. In fact, it became evident in these conferences that nothing but a detailed study of conditions and costs of production, with studies of transportation and markets, would give a body of information on which safe judgments could be based.

The project is in reality a study of the conditions under which reclamation projects will succeed in western Nevada. It is a topic. of the utmost importance at the present time when the future development of farming in Nevada is so directly dependent upon the colonization of large ranches into small farms and the breaking up of sagebrush deserts into irrigated farms.

There have been many failures on the part of farmers on all western reclamation projects; and it is hoped that through this station project the Nevada Station will gain information that will put it into a position to give helpful advice to settlers on new projects and guard them against unnecessary and disheartening failure.

Studies of farm enterprise and the cost of producing farm products are made in cooperation with farmers in four of the counties of western Nevada. Representatives of the Station visit cooperating farmers in each of these counties every week for the collection of records of labor, cash expenditures, and cash receipts that are kept by the farmers themselves. All the records are assembled and tabulated in the central office of the Department of Farm Development. This arrangement brings the Station into closer contact with the small farmers of western Nevada than ever before; and it is only fair to say that the relationship is probably as helpful to the Station as it is to the farmers themselves. Project 31. Studies of the Economics of Cattle Production Under Nevada Ranch and Range Conditions. (Inactive.) Purnell Fund.

This project was outlined at the beginning of the past fiscal year;

but so much difficulty was found in getting a man of the right qualifications to undertake the work that the funds allotted to the project were finally diverted to the land reclamation studies in southern Nevada and to the study of economic conditions affecting reclamation projects in western Nevada.

On the whole this was a fortunate arrangement; for the departments to which the funds were diverted were enabled to develop adequate organizations and to make rapid progress from the beginning. With the increase of the Purnell Fund cattle production studies will again be included in the Station program.

Projects 32 and 33. A Test of Economic Efficiency of Alfalfa Hay as a Sole Ration for Dairy Cattle in Western Nevada and of the Relation of this Ration to Sterility. Purnell Fund. Project Leader, F. B. Headley. "Dairying is certain to develop into one of the leading agricultural enterprises of the irrigated sections of western Nevada. Our supply of cheap alfalfa hay and the moderate climate combine to reduce the cost of dairy products to a minimum. The industry, however, has certain problems that should be solved in order that the most efficient methods may be practiced. In the eastern and central states where the price of alfalfa is higher and of grain lower than in the west, it has been found profitable to feed concentrates along with the roughage, but our own conditions are such as to make this a questionable practice, at least with cows of average production. It is the common practice of many Nevada farmers to feed nothing but alfalfa hay to their cows during the winter months, and still the average production per cow appears to be equal to the average production in those states where concentrates are included in the ration.

"It is certain that our production can be increased by the addition of grain to the ration but we do not know at present under what conditions the grain supplement would be profitable. There are other debatable questions that perplex dairymen and among them we find the merits of silos and of grass pastures most frequently discussed. These are not easy problems to solve on private farms because careful records of feeds and yields from groups of cows receiving different rations must be kept. For this reason an experiment in feeding has been established by this department in cooperation with the Newlands Experiment Farm at Fallon.

"For the purpose of conducting these experiments a dairy house, barn, bull pen and corrals were constructed in October, 1925. Seventeen grade cows were purchased and four borrowed for the tests. These 21 cows were divided into 3 groups of 5 each and 2 groups of 3 each for the purpose of trying out the various rations. The work is being conducted in such a manner that the effect of grain on production profits and general health of the cows can be calculated. In order to ascertain whether or not silos and pastures are economically justifiable, the results of the cost of production studies (Project 30) on private farms must be combined with the results of these experiments."1

1From Annual Report of the Department of Farm Development for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1926 (MSS). F. B. Headley.

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