Show = 12 INCHES OF RAIN 1 I Western Country Being Improved by Conservation of Moisture I Aided by Scientific Methods and Introduction In-troduction of Drought Resisting i I Plants Farmers Can Do II with Little Water I Vc pride ourselves on being the possessors of the wisdom mud experience I experi-ence of the ages And yet when wo were first confronted with ton conditions condi-tions of the arid and semiarid regions I re-gions of our country we seemed to have altogether forgotten that the early agricultural development of mankind was all In regions of limited rainfall and that the mighty empires I i of ancient days depended hugely for i their wealth and strength on the products I prod-ucts of agriculture under artificial Irrigation Ir-rigation writes Congressman F I W Mondell In Field and Farm Two I generations of men have heen engaged en-gaged In the west In reviving and Improving i Im-proving the methods of ancient Irrigation Irri-gation until the advantages of that method of agriculture hnvo been fully and triumphantly reestablished We are now engaged In reviving and Improving In the new west another an-other form of agriculture long practiced prac-ticed In the far cast that of farming In regions of limited moisture by tho conservation of tho natural rainfall So accustomed had our people become to farming In regions where the rainfall rain-fall Is ordinarily more than sufficient and often superabundant that we had accepted as a truism the false Idea that agriculture depending upon natural precipitation could not be successful suc-cessful except where nature plagued the husbandman with rain and snow to such an extent that the most of his labor was expended In an effort to overcome the loss and damage of unnecessarily un-necessarily frequent and copious deliveries de-liveries of moisture from the skies Error and misconception are tenacious tena-cious of life and It has taken a generation gen-eration of discovery and experiment to demonstrate that a wide range of agricultural crops can be successfully i grown In certain soils where mud and slush are rare and damage from excessive ex-cessive moisture almost unknown In other wprds with an annual precipitation precipi-tation heretofore considered entirely Inadequate Thirty Inches of moisture per annum was once considered the minimum for safe crop growing Tho pioneer of the plains reduced this to 20 Inches and now tho thorough farmer farm-er aided by scientific methods and the Introduction and development of drought resisting plants has demonstrated demon-strated on an extensive scale and In I many localities In the west that a considerable variety of agricultural products can be successfully and profitably pro-fitably grown with an annual precipitation precipi-tation of less than 12 Inches This newold system of agriculture long practiced In many parts of the world and Improved and perfected by f American genius energy and enterprise enter-prise has come to be known at dry farming Some object to tho name and In a sense It Is a misnomer for I the dry farmer Is most emphatically a moistsol farmer but our language does not seem to contain a word which more nearly describes these simple yet essential methods easily learned and readily applied whereby the dry farmer amid climatic conditions condi-tions comfortable and pleasing produces I pro-duces his crops with more than ordinary r or-dinary certainty a d The old adage that enough Is as aanat good as a feast applies with peculiar dur force to the problem of moisture In t oumu y the growing of crops Why voluntarily volun-tarily endure the blockading snows r a ecru of a northern or the torturing mud and slush of a southern humid winter when nature has established conditions condi-tions In the west free from these discomforts nUl dis-comforts but with sufficient rain and heda snow fall intelligently conserved to produce satisfactory crops The deep 4iE t IS n plowing and surface cultivation of the dry farmer arc less laborious and more comfortably performed than the road f mudding In of crops tho drainage and tIV6f the weary waiting of thu larmer In 38 S humid regions for the land to dry sufficiently y f t suf-ficiently for planting |