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Most Trees in Smallest Area
• By H. C. Dunlavy
acre will contain as many trees set out by the deltoid system as one acre will where the trees are set out in the form of squares, or 86.6 acres in the first case equal to 100 acres in the second case. Or if a tract of land would contain, under the present system of planting, 1,000
HE deltoid system will probably prove of more interest to pomologists than to people of other vocations. By using this
system, a greater number of trees per acre may be planted at a given distance apart, than by any other system. It seems to be the general impression that the system of planting in squares is the one which accomplishes the above desideratum, but the following will prove that this impression is a delusion.
Figure 1 represents seven trees planted by the deltoid system and we will suppose them to be one rod apart. The inner hexagon represents the exact area occupied by one tree exclusively, which area is equal to that of two of the equilateral triangles formed by the trees. Since the sine of 60° = .866 it is evident that this area equals .866 square rods. Figure 2 represents nine trees planted one rod apart in the form of squares, and the inner square represents the exact area occupied by one tree, which area is one square rod. It is now evident that when planting the same distance apart .866
Fig. 2. The Deltoid System OF PLANTING TREES.
trees, at a given distance apart, it would, under the deltoid system, contain 1888 or 1,154 trees the same distance apart, or an increase of 15.4%. With suitable machines the farmer might utilize this system in planting his corn and have this percentage in his favor, but even though the hills of corn should be their usual distance apart the rows would have but .866 their usual width and although he would be able to plow it in three different directions instead of two, the second plowing would be at an angle of only 60° to the first instead of the 90° angle as at present. Since plants generally cover a circular area, the ground at the corners of a square is of litttle use to a plant, and since the deltoid system allows each plant a hexagonal area it conforms nearer than any other arrangement to the shape of the plant.
Fig. 1. THE WAY TREES ARE ORDINARILY PLANTED.
Dry Farming in the West
By W. Thomas
M O DERN science has de- mere deep plowing will not secure retenA creed that deserts may be tion of the moisture. A packing process
fertile, though there be must follow hard upon the turning of present neither running the soil. A special machine is used for streams nor even so much this purpose. Mr. Campbell has made sev
as a pool of stagnant water. eral inventions to be applied to this use. Mr. H. W. Campbell, a native of Ver- After the crop is once in, constant surmont, now residing in Lincoln, Nebraska, face cultivation must be maintained, but has accomplished this seeming marvel. that no moisture may be squandered Without irrigating ditches or wells, but penetration of the soil ends with a depth solely by his already famous method of of two or three inches. Perhaps the dry farming, he is making the “Great most peculiar feature of the Campbell American Desert" bloom. His system is system is that as time goes on, year by quite simple. It consists in retaining the year the soil will be found to have gained moisture in the ground by a process of in its accumulation of moisture. The packing the sub-soil, so that twelve inches dust that is scratched up from time to of rainfall, properly conserved, will suf- time covers the soil below like a protectfice to turn a region from cattle-raising ing blanket. to agriculture.
Each fruit or grain, according to its In North America there is a compara- kind, requires a varying degree of attentively arid region extending eastward tion. Garden vegetables and corn must from the Rocky Mountains some hun be cultivated a dozen or more times in dreds of miles, and linking the plains of the season; small grains after each rain Assiniboia with those of Texas. Parts until they are several inches high; fruit or the whole of eleven states and terri- trees must have constant care. tories and two provinces are included Mr. Campbell began his experiments within this area. From a poverty- in 1883, though it was ten years before stricken desert, plagued by crop failures the discoverer won his first triumph. and heavily ridden with mortgages, the This was in South Dakota, where in 1893 system of dry-farming is gradually but he turned out 124 bushels to the acre, surely restoring this region to a prosper- while his scoffing neighbors, who stood out farming land.
by their New England methods, met with And this is the way Mr. Campbell's a total crop failure. Since then thoumethod is put into operation. The nature sands of acres have been reclaimed. Irriof the prairie soils is such that water is gation has found a rival in a system that absorbed by them as oil is by a wick. makes a single drop of water go twice Here, then, deep beneath the surface, as far as in climes where rainfall is more moisture is retained as in a reservoir. abundant. Government experts are now Exposure of this sub-soil means speedy conducting important experiments with evaporation and, of course, no crops. But the Campbell system.
Without the aid of a glass, an Austra- The gold mines of Western Australia lian is said to have written 10,061 words have paid dividends amounting to over on a postal card.
70 millions of dollars.