The experiment stations

The brave pioneers who fought the relentless dryness of the Great American Desert from the memorable entrance of the Mormon pioneers into the valley of the Great Salt Lake in 1847 were not the only ones engaged in preparing the way for the present day of great agricultural endeavor.  Other, though perhaps more indirect, forces were also at work for the future development of the semiarid section.  The Morrill Bill of 1862, making it possible for agricultural colleges to be created in the various states and territories, indicated the beginning of a public feeling that modern methods should be applied to the work of the farm.  The passage in 1887 of the Hatch Act, creating agricultural experiment stations in all of the states and territories, finally initiated a new agricultural era in the United States.  With the passage of this bill, stations for the application of modern science to crop production were for the first time authorized in the regions of limited rainfall, with the exception of the station connected with the University of California, where Hilgard from 1872 had been laboring in the face of great difficulties upon the agricultural problems of the state of California.  During the first few years of their existence, the stations were busy finding men and problems.  The problems nearest at hand were those that had been attacked by the older stations founded under an abundant rainfall and which could not be of vital interest to arid countries.  The western stations soon began to attack their more immediate problems, and it was not long before the question of producing crops without irrigation on the great unirrigated stretches of the West was discussed among the station staffs and plans were projected for a study of the methods of conquering the desert.

The Colorado Station was the first to declare its good intentions in the matter of dry-farming, by inaugurating definite experiments.  By the action of the State Legislature of 1893, during the time of the great drouth, a substation was established at Cheyenne Wells, near the west border of the state and within the foothills of the Great Plains area.  From the summer of 1894 until 1900 experiments were conducted on this farm.  The experiments were not based upon any definite theory of reclamation, and consequently the work consisted largely of the comparison of varieties, when soil treatment was the all-important problem to be investigated.  True in 1898, a trial of the “Campbell method” was undertaken.  By the time this Station had passed its pioneer period and was ready to enter upon more systematic investigation, it was closed.  Bulletin 59 of the Colorado Station, published in 1900 by J. E. Payne, gives a summary of observations made on the Cheyenne Wells substation during seven years.  This bulletin is the first to deal primarily with the experimental work relating to dry-farming in the Great Plains area.  It does not propose or outline any system of reclamation.  Several later publications of the Colorado Station deal with the problems peculiar to the Great Plains.