[AT] Cubs - now Aliquot

[Dave Merchant]

Curiosity strikes...

From:
http://www.co.north-slope.ak.us/gis/toolbox/encyclopaedia/text/a_text.htm

  Aliquot land description

Aliquot means "contained an exact number of times in something else" 
(WWWebster Dictionary).
There are many land areas which are described using an aliquot land 
description, a method that uses meridians, and a grid of townships and 
sections. There are five meridians established for Alaska,
each with its own name (e.g., Kateel, Umiat, etc.) The township grid is 
defined by township lines
running East to West (they define the southern and northern boundaries of 
the grid), and range lines
running North to South (they define the eastern and western boundaries of 
the grid and are offset
to compensate to the curvature of the earth.) Township and range lines are 
numbered and their
name indicates their compass direction and how far they are from an 
established base line or
principal meridian respectively.
Each township square in the grid is named after the township and range 
lines that enclose it
and the meridian it is referenced to (e.g., township 6 North, range 30 
west, Umiat meridian, etc.)
Each township is a square measuring 6 miles by 6 miles containing a 36 
square miles.
Each one of these 36 square miles is known as a section (usually 640 
acres), with numbers
1-36 assigned to each one in a certain order, to designate the location of 
each section within
the township. Each section is subdivided into quarter sections and each 
quarter section can be
further subdivided into either quarters or halves, as needed. Quarter 
sections and their
subdivisions are named using compass descriptions. For example, the aliquot 
land description
of a native allotment could be S1/2NE1/4SEC9T6NR30WUM, which means that the 
allotment
is located in the southern 1/2 of the northeast 1/4 of section 9, township 
6 North, range 30 West, Umiat meridian.

Dave Merchant


At 05:10 PM 7/4/2004, you wrote:
>Larry D. Goss wrote:
>
>>The first time I remember seeing wording like you heard George use was
>>in literature advertising the John Deere L.
>>
>>As I understand it, part of the rationale for the aliquots of land in
>>the public survey system containing 40 acres was because this is a much
>>land as a man with a single team of horses or mules could maintain.
>>This same amount of land was supposed to be able to sustain the farmer
>>and his family.  It also just so happens (duh!) that when you divide a
>>square mile into a checkerboard pattern, each aliquot ends up being 40
>>acres.  It's kind of a chicken and egg situation.  If none of these
>>reasons make sense to you, then make up your own story.  :-)
>>
>>It was nice to travel through Farmer's "greenway" trail last month.  As
>>I was driving over it in Ol' 191, I was reminded of the way the fields
>>on the farm where I grew up were broken into smaller patches because
>>they needed to be "horse size".  And there were a number of large trees
>>in between the fields and along the fence rows which were absolutely
>>essential for the welfare of the horses.  That's one of the things
>>that's missing from Farmer's nature trail -- not enough shade trees at
>>the edges of the fields.
>>
>>Now that the farm where I grew up is farmed by modern big machinery, all
>>the green belts are gone, and so are the trees.  They "got in the road"
>>of the equipment.
>>
>>Larry
>>
>>
>
>
>
>    You have to remember too that farming a 40 acre mid-west farm in those 
> days had a fairly small amount of grain crops involved. You had to have 
> pastures for the horses, cow or cows, sheep and small lots for the hogs. 
> Then you had to have a hay field to get them through the winter. By the 
> time you took out space for the house, garden, barn and chicken house and 
> chicken lot there was maybe only 25 acres left for "tilled" crops like 
> corn, wheat and oats. Soybeans are a "relatively" new crop in the US. You 
> about had to grow wheat and oats. The wheat straw was bedding and the 
> oats for feeding. Oats straw was often fed to cattle.
>
>    You probably noticed a lot of small trees, mostly walnut and ash, 
> along the trail. Kind of hard to get any size on them quickly...   :-)
>You may have also noticed the X-mas trees in the back corner. The small 
>Norway Spruce are still shorter than the grass. The Scotch Pine are ready 
>to be trimmed this month again. A number have been damaged by the deer but 
>I left them standing hoping they will keep using the same ones to rub 
>their antlers on. I badly need to get another 200 in the ground this fall.
>
>    My father and I fought long and hard about trees. If he would have had 
> his way every tree would have been gone and every square foot planted to 
> corn or soybeans. He was very angry that I would not clear that back 
> corner so he could have the old trolley grade dozed and plant corn all 
> the way to the railroad tracks. The farm was badly overgrown when they 
> bought it in 1951 and needed a lot of clearing then, he just never knew 
> when to stop...
>
>    Speaking of oats... I have been baling the field of oats across the 
> road from the house as hay. I cut them green and bale grain and all. I 
> grew them as a nurse crop for timothy and orchard grass and as something 
> to sell off of the field early. They were planted a little thin so that 
> they would not compete too hard with the new grasses. We also baled some 
> "mixed stuff" off of a neighbor's back lot. We baled about 1,000 bales 
> the last of the week. I still have a few acres to go on the oats and 
> maybe another 8 acres of mixed stuff to bale yet. We had some needed rain 
> Saturday night and the orchard grass has jumped several inches overnight 
> now that the oats are gone. Some people claim that critters won't eat 
> oats hay but we used to feed it to cattle and sheep and the horses at the 
> west barn have given it "two hooves up"...   ;-)
>
>    The patch we plowed at cubfest is now home to about 600 hills of 
> pumpkin plants. If each hill makes 5 pumpkins...
>
>"farmer"
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Dave Merchant
kosh at nesys.com
nesys_com at ameritech.net

http://www.nesys.com
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