anaheim-gazette 1935-03-07

"A deed to your farm won't hold the soil." Now, contrary to the usual case, that's not a Chinese proverb. The Chinese are famous for their proverbs, but they didn't think of that one, and it's too bad that they didn't, because in China today there are millions of acres barren and uninhabited that once were fertile and productive. It took an up-and-coming young farmer, from Missouri to think of this bit of boiled down wisdom, and the Chinese will have to go some to top it. Today we promised to take a look at your farm, and the first thing that we'll look for is a flock of fat Plymouth Rock roosters. You don't have any idea how the squawking of a fat rooster about eleven A.M. affects an erosion investigator, especially if some one drops a hint that there is going to be hot biscuits to go with it. Now, we'll do a little real erosionering for a change. Yours is a typically California farm. The twenty down near the river is devoted to alfalfa that's doing well on the light sandy soil. Up near the house the soil is heavier, and you're raising walnuts, or oranges (according to the locality) with beans or tomatoes between the rows. Beyond there you have forty acres that sweep back into from an up and down hill-planted orchard, when contour or terraced planting would have prevented the major part of the loss. There are the pros and cons regarding the value of contour planting and terracing in orchards, and you can draw your own conclusions. "But what's the out when my orchard is already planted the wrong way?" you want to know. There are a number of things you can do. Establish contour lines regardless of the tree rows (a farm level will set you back twenty dollars), and the Department of Agriculture Bulletin Number 1669 will tell you how to use it) and do your sub-soiling and cultivating along the established lines. That will call for work, but it will also pay dividends and dividends are what we're after. Strip crop with grass and forage crops at intervals, depending upon the slope, and they will catch your fleeing top soil and wrest it away from the water and at the same time allow the water to sink into the ground. Plant soil holding cover crops between the contour rows and never, never run a subsolver, or even a disc or plow, straight down the hill. We've all heard of horse-sense, haven't we? Did you ever notice the way eleven A.M. affects an erosion investigator, especially if some one drops a hint that there is going to be hot biscuits to go with it. Now, we'll do a little real erosionering for a change. Yours is a typically California farm. The twenty down near the river is devoted to alfalfa that's doing well on the light sandy soil. Up near the house the soil is heavier, and you're raising walnuts, or prunes, or oranges (according to the locality) with beans or tomatoes between the rows. Beyond there you have forty acres that sweep back into the foothills, and you have been farming tomatoes, or beans, on that, with hay or beans on up the slope until it becomes too steep for anything but sage and yucca. Now, let's see about your problems of erosion. There's not likely to be any such problem connected with the twenty devoted to alfalfa, because the roots of alfalfa form of nature's best soil binders, but how about that barranca that comes down along the east line? If it's thirty feet deep your water table is certainly never going to be less than thirty feet below the ground, because the barranca acts as a drain. What about the runoff outlets from your irrigation water? Have you got it flumed down to the floor of the barranca and spilling out on an apron? An improperly constructed runoff outlet into that barranca will present you with a miniature Royal Gorge in your alfalfa field in a few years, if you don't watch out. Your alfalfa field is practically immune to sheet erosion, and gullying, but it can't prevent the fields above from eroding, and a good head of storm water can bury your alfalfa under six inches of sand as sharp as plaster's mud if you have made no preparation to take care of it. That's that for now regarding the answer. A Mangum terrace is nothing more than a ridge eighteen or twenty inches high, and twenty to thirty feet across the base that follows a contour line. You can plant your crop right over the top of them, and they can be constructed with a grader for around three dollars per acre protected. They are given a grade, or fall, of from one-half inch per hundred feet of length to as high as six inches near the outlet of extremely long ones. Mangum terraces will help you. They will just about do the job complete in some localities if the slope isn't too steep. It is necessary, however, to protect the outlet with grass or rock lining. When work, but it will also pay dividends and dividends are what we're after. Strip crop with grass and forage crops at intervals, depending upon the slope, and they will catch your fleeing top soil and wrest it away from the water and at the same time allow the water to sink into the ground. Plant soil holding cover crops between the contour rows and never, never run a subsolver, or even a disc or plow, straight down the hill. We've all heard of horse-sense, haven't we? Did you ever notice the way a horse works his way up a hill if left alone? I wonder now if it's horse sense or laziness that makes them follow a contour line instead of going straight up and straight down and thereby invite erosion to do its stuff on their pasture land. Now for the forty, where you have been raising open crops such as beans or corn, or truck crops, or even grains. There the problem of erosion control is just as acute as in the orchard, but the remedy is surer and a lot less drastic on the pocket book. Where the slope is less than ten or twelve per cent Mangum terraces seem to be the TRACK MEET POST The 17th Annual South A.A.U. Relay Carnival, held last Saturday at Longpostponed due to the heavy rain; Wendell Heil, Santa Finley, Tustin, S. James Vercini; A. C. Pickering, Yand Farm Advisor Harold Dena; "What It Costs to Cados" by Harold E. Walsh Advisor Orange County; "The Avocado in the Diel Belle Alger, Home De Agent, San Diego County developments in Avocado Park by H. L. McKenzie, entomology Citrus Experiment Station Methods of Disease Control cados" by Dean F. Palmer, Ray Frantz, La Habra, the Orange County Avocadoment, will preside at the session. He has called a space of the members of the departmenting the noon hour between Members of the committee Marsh, La Habra; H. H. Range; Wendell Heil, Santa Finley, Tustin, S. James Vercini; A. C. Pickering, Yand Farm Advisor Harold Dena; be "farmed out" or have eroded away in seven to eight cultivated, and then it birth place of guillies—the most greedy enemy. Margarit cultivated hill lands, loose then just to accommodate rains, donate huge quantities or clay to be distributed on the fertile, productive farmland on low-down on most slopes land, and farmers are finding a good pasture is worth a long-run than a poverty starved hillside. Today we've made a survey of a farm just to show size up your own from point of view. From now on getting down to brass tractors into just one phase of erosion at a time. Next week we'll Erosion—The Sneak Thief! This is number four of articles about erosion control been prepared by Harry Regional Director of the Erosion Service of California dick has requested The Gazette to cooperate with tion in presenting the traction erosion to the people. The Gazette is glad to publish tion in the interests of its farm. ly constructed runoff outlet into that barranca will present you with a miniature Royal Gorge in your alfalfa field in a few years, if you don't watch out. Your alfalfa field is practically immune to sheet erosion, and gullying, but it can't prevent the fields above from eroding, and a good head of storm water can bury your alfalfa under six inches of sand as sharp as plaster's mud if you have made no preparation to take care of it. That's that for now regarding the alfalfa. Let's move on up to the orchard land. Your slope in this piece averages around five or twelve per cent. How are your trees planted — in straight rows up and down the slopes, or on a contour? "What does it matter?" you ask, and that's our cue to quote a few facts and figures and do a bit of general philosophizing. First off let's agree on one thing: the whole idea behind erosion control is to make running water walk, or stop the raindrops where they fall. That's the story in a nut shell. Slow water down and it seeps into the ground and raises your water table. Slow the water down and it doesn't cut ditches. Slow the water down and it doesn't pick up the nitrogen and the humus, and the dollar-a-sack fertilizer from the soil, or dump box car loads of washed sand on your alfalfa down below. Contour farming is the planting of your tree rows so that the vertical drop from tree to tree will go gradual; and so that the rain will sink into the soil or follow the rows slowly as it runs off. Experiments prove that the same amount of rain will run off a three percent grade about six times as fast as it will from land that is approximately level, unless it is a very porous soil. Experiments prove that the crop yield on contoured land where terraces have developed is almost double that on land of an equal slope with rows running up and down the hillside and where erosion has been active. By far the greater percent of the value of your land is in the top soil. Erosion in one storm has taken as much as one-third of the top soil line. You can plant your crop right over the top of them, and they can be constructed with a grader for around three dollars per acre protected. They are given a grade, or fall, of from one-half inch per hundred feet of length to as high as six inches near the outlet of extremely long ones. Mangum terraces will help you. They will just about do the job complete in some localities if the slope isn't too steep. It is necessary, however, to protect the outlet with grass or rock lining. When the embankments are new it's a good idea to keep them in grass—long enough for them to settle and stabilize. But there's still another way it can be done and without borrowing the county's grader to build the terraces or buying one of your own. Strip cropping—and again—on the contour. Strip cropping is the seeding of strips of land at intervals down the slope, the width of the spaces between depending upon the grade, to grass or legumes that have soil holding root systems. These strips catch the water as it comes from the open spaces and slow it up, allowing it to sink into the ground and deposit its burden of soil. They prevent the escape of the top soil, the starting of guillles, and eventually, after years of cultivation, become the risers or banks of bency terrances. They are much cheaper to install than Mangum terraces, but they necessarily break your field up into several pieces devoted to different crops. Now for the steeper side hills. You're probably raising hay on those steeper slopes, and I won't ask you whether you are actually making money by it or not, because after all, you're the one who has to meet the tax collector when he comes around. But here's something you might think about. Marginal land is often thought to be profitable, when it actually isn't, because we figure the production on an area including quite a bit of level land, and the good soil on the flats lies itself blue in the face for its poor relation on the hillside. Marginal land on hillsides is liable to Avocado Varieties To Be Evaluated What is the comparative value of different avocado varieties with respect to marketing and consumer preference? This question will be discussed at the Avocado Growers Institute of La Habra next Friday, March 8, according to announcement from the farm advisor's office. Some 400 growers are expected to attend. Dr. J. Eliot Coit, long identified with the avocado industry and a director in the industry marketing association, will present a report on the marketing qualities of the more important varieties. Records show there are about 100 varieties of avocados, but only a few varieties are adapted to present market demands. These will be described and evaluated in order of their preference on today's markets. The significance of competition from Florida and Cuba will be explained by E. G. Hart, La Habra, who has just recently returned from that state. He will describe the volume and outlook of the avocado industry there. Other talks scheduled for the day's session include: "Climatic Influence on Commercial Avocado Production."—V. P. Blanchard, Farm Advisor, Ventura County; "Training and Pruning Avocado Trees" by Carter Barrett, Pasana; "What It Costs to Produce Avocados" by Harold E. Wahlberg, Farm Advisor Orange County; Demonstration The Avocado in the Diet" by Misselle Alger, Home Demonstration Agent, San Diego County; "New Developments in Avocado Pest Control" by H. L. McKenzie, entomologist of the Virus Experiment Station; "Practical Methods of Disease Control in Avocados" by Dean F. Palmer, Carlsbad. Ray Frantz, La Habra, chairman of the Orange County Avocado Department, will preside at the morning session. EDITOR'S NOTE:—This is the third in a series of four articles by Ralph H. Taylor, Executive Secretary of the Agricultural Council of California, reviewing important farm issues pending before the 1935 State Legislature. The California farmer, long accustomed to battling predatory animals, insect pests, plant diseases, frosts, water-shortages and depressions, is now preparing to do battle—with the aid of restrictive legislation—on a new front! The new battle is to protect farm income! It is a fight to protect agricultural earnings from confiscation by unprincipled and unreliable handlers of farm products, who have cost California farmers many hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. As a result of increasing irregularities on the part of fly-by-night dealers, bills have been submitted to the State Legislature to require the licensing, under either the Produce Dealers' Act or the Deciduous Fruit Dealers' Act, of all commissionmen, brokers, agents and buyers, except actual cash buyers. And a "cash buyer," under terms of the new legislation, must pay in actual coin of the realm—not by check! "Rubber checks" have accounted for some of the farmer's heaviest losses in recent years. The bills, if enacted, will require the licensing of handlers of farm products in many formerly-exempted lines of business, including field crops, grains, canned, dried and other preserved foods. Stressing the importance of complete and accurate estimates in the face of the large crop in sight, the California-Arizona Citrus Marketing Agreement has called for an estimate as of March 1 of the 1935 Valencia orange crop according to W. C. Frackelton, secretary and manager of the Agreement. Official estimate and application for allotment forms have been mailed to all shippers and unaffiliated growers of record, he said. "It is extremely important that every producing Valencia grove be included in this estimate before the start of the shipping season," said Frackelton. "The shipping allotment issued weekly for each grower after the start of the season is figured entirely on the percentage of the total crop each grower controls as determined by the estimates filed with the Growers Advisory Committee. "Growers should protect their interests before the start of the shipping season by arranging for the movement of their crop through some shipping organization or they may file their estimate and apply for a shipping allotment direct to the Growers Advisory Committee, 514 East Eighth Street, Los Angeles." "One of the largest crops of Navel oranges in the history of California is now being marketed under the control of the California-Arizona Citrus Marketing Agreement," Frackelton stated. "Over twenty-two thousand cars of Navels have moved to date with ap- of consideration during the present critical period. There are strong indications, to be sure, that agriculture is on "the road back", but the fight for rehabilitation has only begun. And the TRACK MEET POSTPONED The 17th Annual Southern Pacific A.U. Relay Carnival, scheduled to be held last Saturday at Long Beach was postponed due to the heavy rainfall. It is believed that the events will be held next Saturday, although the officials refused to definitely set the date. "farmed out" or have its good soil owed away in seven to twelve years cultivated, and then it becomes the fourth place of gullies—the soil's second most greedy enemy. Marginal, or steep cultivated hill lands, loose their top soil, often just to accommodate the hungry pigs, donate huge quantities of sand clay to be distributed farther down on the fertile, productive fields. That's low-down on most steep hillside land, and farmers are finding out that good pasture is worth more in the long-run than a poverty crop from a barren hillside. Today we've made a rather hasty survey of a farm just to show you how size up your own from an erosional point of view. From now on we go to get down to brass tacks and dig to just one phase of erosion control at a time. Next week we'll give "Sheet Erosion—The Sneak Thief" the works. This is number four of a series of articles about erosion control that has been prepared by Harry E. Reddick, regional Director of the U. S. Soil Erosion Service of California. Mr. Reddick has requested The Anaheim Gazette to cooperate with his organization in presenting the tragic truth of erosion to the people. The Anaheim Gazette is glad to publish these articles the interests of its farm readers. And a "cash buyer", under terms of the new legislation, must pay in actual coin of the realm—not by check! "Rubber checks" have accounted for some of the farmer's heaviest losses in recent years. The bills, if enacted, will require the licensing of handlers of farm products in many formerly-exempted lines of business, including field crops, grains, canned, dried and other preserved foods, milk and dairy products. All of these receivers, in addition to being required to secure a license from the State Department of Agriculture, will also be forced to post a bond of $5000 as an added protection to the farmer. The new legislation, although there is a growing conviction that it is necessary from the farmer's standpoint, illustrates the old adage that "the many must suffer for the sins of the few." There are hundreds of reliable handlers of farm produce who have dealt fairly and honestly with the farmer. But farm income has been hard hit by unprincipled operators, with the result that there is a constantly increasing demand for restrictive legislation. From present indications, California farmers also will be required to go into battle again to defend their property, due to the introduction of a number of bills designed to break down the trespass laws. For the most part the trespass bills seek to "pull the teeth" of the present law by providing that no one can be prevented from hunting on uncultivated lands or fenced lands which have not been signed. California farm organizations will oppose any modification of the trespass laws—and probably successfully! Prior to enactment of adequate trespass restrictions, many hunters abused their privileges by stampeding cattle, destroying fences and buildings and permitting fires to escape, with the result that the farming industry suffered heavy losses. The farmer's ability to produce and pay his taxes should be a primary consideration—and a more important consideration than the hunter's privilege to enjoy his holiday, free of any restriction. Also pending are several bills to limit the deer kill to one per season, which would probably have the effect of minimizing the trespass problem. The present limit, in most districts, is two per season. Both in the protection of his income—and in the protection of his property—the farmer is entitled to a new degree of consideration during the present critical period. There are strong indications, to be sure, that agriculture is on "the road back", but the fight for rehabilitation has only begun. And the welfare of urban California—and urban business and industry—is as dependent on the outcome as the welfare of the farmer. (Next Week: "New Trends — And Old!") INSTANT blade change The Schick NIECTOR Razor gives you a new convenience in shaving. The Injector, which contains 20 blades is always ready to insert a new blade when needed. A new blade is inserted instantly, at the same time ejecting the old blade without your hand touching either of them. $1.50 COMPLETE INJECTOR WITH 20 BLADES SEaled in It. Try this new razor. You will experience not only an added new convenience, but also a new shaving sensation. 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Both Navels and Valencias are advanced in maturity as compared with the average for past seasons. 3 LINES — 3 TIMES — 3 DIMES "I HAVEN'T HAD A COLD IN FIVE YEARS" In the old days I used to dread the coming of Winter. I was always fighting colds—feeling about half alive—trying to work with my body aching and every nerve on edge. Then a friend told me about McCoy's Cod Liver Oil Tablets with their marvelous vitamins A and D. I started to take them five years ago and I haven't had a cold since that time. "McCoy's tablets put new life in folks; build up resistance so anyone can laugh at cold germs. They make weak, skinny people stridng, steady-nerved and vigorous. They're wonderful!" Get the genuine McCoy's Cod Liver Oil Tablets from your druggist today. Don't waste money on limitations. Ask for McCoy's. BUSINESS DIRECTORY Ambulance Service Day or Night—Phone 3209 Backs, Terry & Campbell H. P. 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