---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Sanderson, O. M.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 22
number: 10
published: 1919-08
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Sanderson, O. M., "A Prayer," *Improvement Era* 22, no. 10 (August 1919): 880.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera22010unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera22010unse
start_page: 880
end_page: 880
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1919-08)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera22010unse
  publication_year: 1919
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1919, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# A Prayer

<!-- page:880 -->

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