Show A few Tanning Plant Some of the Idaho papers are recommending recom-mending farmers in that state to try the cultivation of the canaigre plant If that would be of value to Idaho it might be of benefit to Utah But most of our readers will want to know what is the canaigre plant It is a plant having a root something like a sweet potato which contains large quantities of tannic acid and can therefore there-fore be utilized instead of bark for tanning tan-ning purposes It grows wild in some warm climates and experiments have been made in its cultivation in New Mexico Although the properties of the plant have been known for some time tests of its tanning uses Lave only been made recently re-cently Some European firms found iso i-so good that they have built tanneries near places where it can be gathered in its wild state This has stimulated the cultivation of canaigre and that has demonstrated that about twentyfive tons to the acre may be produced while the wild product yields only about ten or twelve tons A New York firm is reported as having offered 10 a ton for 75000 tons a yea for the next five years delivered on the cars at Eddy station That would make its cultivation profitable and indicate that there is something init We do not know whether the climate of central and northern Utah is adapted to the plant but it is worth a trial Southern Utah would no doubt be suitable suit-able to its growth We should manufacture manu-facture all the leather needed to supply our home factories and we should have enough factories not only to supply our home demand bu to export to surrounding surround-ing states and territories Cheap material mater-ial for tanning would help this very much and the Whole matter is worth looking into A gentleman formerly connected with one ol the old mercantile firms in this city was expatiating a few days ago on the almost universal c cultivation of lucen or alfalfa in this territory The whole country around this city is green with tho productive and useful plant And yet he sUited he remembered the time when tho firm with which ho was connected con-nected paid 25 a hundred for some of the seed brought up from St George where lucern had been raised successfully and no fanner could at first be induced buy pound of it The firm had to give most of it away to persons who would agree to plant few rows of it in their gardens as an experiment > The success which hajs attended the r I q 2 > t c c x growth of alfalfa ought to promote ether gricultural experiments We do not ay thatcannigre would be anything like j as beneficial or profitable as lucern to the farmers of Utah but it would not be a bad idea if sotoo of the enterprising among them wouldinvestigate the matter further with a view of trying what cane j can-e done with the plant in this territory I |