OCR Text |
Show I Bank-Sponsored California Tour Reports Hi-Lites Compiled by Wesley Dickerson and Louis A. Jensen One hundred fourteen men from central and eastern Utah, returned a week ago from an agricultural tour to California, sponsored by the Commercial Bank of Utah with the cooperation of the Utah Extension Exten-sion Service and the California Extension Ex-tension Service. Everyone was enthusiastic about what they saw and the only disagreeable dis-agreeable thing was coming back home to find everything here still under a blanket of snow. This, indeed, in-deed, was quite a contrast to the season in Imperial Valley where the first crop of alfalfa hay was about ready to cut. The group travelled by chartered Greyhound bus, leaving Roosevelt at 2 a. m. Feb. 24. In Salt Lake the group was met by those from other areas and the bus loads were rearranged. An ingenious system had been worked out previously so that each member would change buses at different dif-ferent points .along the tour. This was for the purpose of getting better acquainted with people from other parts of the state. the first night was spent in Reno. The time spent in taking in the town was no interference with a 5:30 a. m. breakfast and an early start the next morning. At Sacramento, where the tour actually began, the group was met by representatievs of the California Califor-nia Extension Service. The first stop was a tour of the campus of the University of California at Davis. Here agricultural students come to obtain the latest information inform-ation on all phases of California agriculture. In Stanlislaus county the principal princi-pal attraction was the very excellently excell-ently irrigated pastures. A lot of poor quality land is producing high returns in beef and milk through the use of irrigated pastures, which consist mostly of ladino clover, fescue rand perennial rye grass. Dairymen on the tour especially enjoyed the visit at the Greenough Dairy just out of Merced. Experimental Experi-mental work is being conducted there on the prevention of milk fever. They have found that a ration of high phosphorus and low calcium feed during the dry period per-iod aids materially in preventing this common disease of high producing pro-ducing cows. The Clark Brothers Dairies just out of Fresno were outstanding examples of large dairy herds operated op-erated efficiently. These men have maintained a production record of over 500 pounds ol butterfat per cow for the last twenty years. Wesley Wes-ley Clark has a standing offer of $50 to anyone who can find lifetime life-time production records on any bull anywhere which are higher than those of his herd sire. This man is a handy man with tools and somewhat of an inventor of useful gadgets on the. farm. Some of the things he has made include hay elevators, movable individual in-dividual calf pens, semi-automatic hay feeders, sprinklers for washing wash-ing cows in the holding corral, and a system of cleaning the barn and corrals through the use of a stream of water. Milk cans are a forgotten forgot-ten item on this farm, since the milk goes directly from the milking milk-ing machine into a large tank cooler cool-er through milk tubes. The milk company comes to the . farm with a tank truck and draws out the cooled milk in bulk. On Thursday the group visited the Kern County Land Company Cattle Feed Yards. This company, with its holdings, constitutes the largest ranch in the world. They own 2 millions acres and lease some land in addition. Their, present inventory shows 86,412 cattle, with 36,000 of them cows and 2,469 bulls. Parley Rich-ins Rich-ins is general superintendent. He, incidentally, is a native of Utah, having spent most of his life in Logan and Ogden. ' The Newhall Cattle Co. is also a large cattle operation. Calves are raised in Colorado and shipped to the coast to be fed out. Here, as well as at all cattle feeding operations oper-ations observed roughages and con centrates are ground and mixed together and fed as one complete feed in the manger. Their balanced feed contains 78 per cent concentrate, concentr-ate, and 22 per cent roughage. The roughage is one-half alfalfa hay and one-half straw. The big attraction at the A. H. Karpe ranch in Kern county was the $87,500 bull, Baca Prince Domino Dom-ino XX. Here is also found the world's highest priced cow. T. T. Zato Aris, another bull on this ranch, cost Mr. Carpe $65,000 and he has a standing offer of $125,000 for him. Mr. Karpe's personal story is like Cinderella's. He started as a blacksmith black-smith and had to borrow his first supply of horse shoes. He later went into the farm machinery business bus-iness which became very profitable. profit-able. His present ranch was purchased pur-chased from ex-president Herbert Hoover. He has changed it from almost worthless, unlevel, alkali land to a high-producing farm. Extensive land leveling through the use of heavy equipment and the application appli-cation of barnyard manure up to 50 tons per acre has brought about the change. The LDS Church Welfare farm at Parris, just outside Riverside, was one of the most outstanding places visited. This farm was purchased pur-chased from the Statler Hotels and was formerly owned by Louis B. Mayer, film producer. It consists of 585 .acres of highly productive land. Irrigation water is obtained from pump wells and is distributed distribu-ted through a system of underground under-ground pipes. There are 35 miles of chain-link fence which completely surrounds the farm, with many cross fences in addition. Principal enterprises on the farm are GRADE A milk production.Here ford cattle for producing beef, a fine herd of Hampshire hogs, and a laying flock housed in individual pens, with feed being brought in and eggs taken out on belts. The party went into the Imperial Valley and home by way of Blythe Boulder City and Las Vegas, arriving arriv-ing home March 3. Local men on the trip who may give more information were Otis Walch, Herman Munster, Homei Petersen, W. R. Walker, Orvil Jef-fery Jef-fery and Evan Johnson. |