In 2021, The UC Merced Library received a collection of photographic material depicting Cooperative Extension work at the San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER). The collection was donated by Melvin George— UC Cooperative Extension Rangeland Management Specialist, Emeritus, and member of the Plant Sciences Department at UC Davis— and was added to the Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records in the California Agricultural Resources Archive (CARA). These materials have now been inventoried, transcribed, digitized, and placed online in our online digital repository, Calisphere.
The San Joaquin Experimental Range, established in Madera County in 1934, was the first range research station in the state of California and enabled year-round experimentation by UC Cooperative Extension rangeland specialists in subjects like range and grazing management, pasture improvement, water quality and natural resources, and animal husbandry. Major achievements of the SJER over the years include identifying the need for protein supplements for cattle during the Fall and Winter seasons, developing forage seasons, and creating standards for residual dry matter (RDM) to assess grazing levels.
Taken in the 1930s-40s, these photographs are distinctive from others in our collections due to the action by SJER specialists of adhering the photographs to heavily annotated envelopes. In our repository, we have labeled them as physical objects; they contain important contextual information that should stay close to the image. Duplicate copies of the black-and-white photographs were inside of the envelopes, but UC Merced Library archivists and student assistants placed them in archival quality housing next to the envelopes. Both image and text are important in this collection as its value is rooted in the ability to provide visual learning aids, and in their use as evidence in long-term documentation projects that track research and progression.
Prior to donating the materials, Melvin George worked alongside Neil McDougald, UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor, Emeritus, and former manager of the San Joaquin Experimental Range, to sift through the materials. They produced a detailed inventory with fundamental contextual information such as creator biographies, geographical locations, and content descriptions. This, in addition to the annotations, shape the metadata for the collection. The photographs are divided into subject categories including buildings, erosion, experimental methods, forage plants, utilization, run-off plots, rodent studies, and floods and these terms can assist in filtering the digital objects in Calisphere.
People are occasionally found in the images. For example, one photograph portrays members of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a work relief program established during the Great Depression to ease unemployment, posing for a photograph at SJER. CCC crews worked on the construction of the Range facilities and the creation of land surveys. A typed caption on the envelope reveals that “Five CCC boys that received 8th grade diplomas at the San Joaquin Experimental Range stub camp.”
Five California Conversation Corps (CCC) boys that received 8th grade diplomas, 1939
Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records, UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive
Another image shows an Extension worker measuring vegetation. The annotation identifies the plant as “Hairy grama (bouteloua hirsuta) twelve months after planting from seed.”
Hairy grama (bouteloua hirsuta) twelve months after planting from seed, 1935
Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records, UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive
Gullies, run-offs, and other types of erosion is traced in these photographs and is evident in the following examples.
Shoestring gullies on a denuded slope, 1932
Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records, UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive
Run-off plots 1, 2 and 3, just before grazing, 1940
Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records, UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive
The final example suggests UC Cooperative Extension’s emphasis on education and outreach by distributing knowledge and skills gained on the San Joaquin Experimental Range and sharing it with the wider public.
Impromptu Extension Service meeting to demonstrate results of supplemental feeding tube, 1936
Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records, UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive
Click here to view the entire digitized photographic collection of the San Joaquin Experimental Range!
