A Prayer

m IMPROVEMENT ERA

"As a matter of fact, the common rabbit brush (bigelovia), growing natively in practically all the arid western states, and occupying an area next in extent to that occupied by sage brush and shadscale, has been found in recent experiments by H. M. Hall, Professor of Botany, University of California, to contain fine rubber, only slightly inferior to the pure para product," confided the Utah investigator, Professor Marcus E. Jones, whose lips had finally been unsealed by the signing of the armistice. "The bigelovia graveolens, or that variety having a rich yellowish green, in the autumn yields rubber most satisfactorily;

FIELD OF RABBIT BRUSH Circle Valley, Piute county, Utah, which may ultimately become more valuable as rubber producer than the best agricultural land in the county. This is an average stand of the plant.

the bigelovia nauseosa, having the gray white stems, being much inferior. Only a preliminary, quantitative examination, begun as a war measure and continued since for economic reasons, has so far been effected, and it cannot, from information at hand, be considered commercially profitable at present, though in Utah alone there are upwards of 750 square miles of the plant, and there is a great deal larger acreage upon which it could be made to grow;" added Professor Jones, optimistically. Tests reported by Professor Hall show from 0.5% to 10% rubber, by weight of the entire plant, though Professor Jones believes, from his own determinations of rubber content, that