OCR Text |
Show The Dry Farms. The present outlook for the dry farmers who raise wheat Is not very encouraging. The series ofdrysum-mcis ofdrysum-mcis which have been experienced for the past three years Is working a great hardship upon those who have stocked up with expensive machinery, anticipating antici-pating returns from their farms. Where, water can be taken out on arid lands, even II it Involves considerable consid-erable expense, the proper thing to do, is to work to the end of converting dry farms Into ones that can be Irrigated. Irri-gated. Good land with water can be depended upon to produce a crop each jear, and forty acres of It Is worth more than one hundred and sixty acres of dry farm with no certainty of a crop year after year. The farmers who arc depending upon such land exclusively cannot keep up forever under such reverses. Divide up your holdings, and get the water If possible. I n some localities w atercannot be taken tak-en out at all. The persons owning land Is such places would do well to turn their attention to something else besides wheat. A great many people arc averse to raising rye because of Its light yield, but a crop Is almost a ccrtalnlty each year and rye makes the best of horse and hog feed. If cut In the proper time It makes the finest hay for beef cattle and they will thrive and do well on It. Some butchers prefer for market beef that Is fed on rye hay In preference to any other. There arc also grasses that have been recently Introduced Into this country, that Is adapted to arid regions and Is excellent feed. It might be well for dry farmers to Investigate In-vestigate some of these new departures and break away from the one and only Idea of planting wheat on lliclr land, which brings them such poor returns. It Is no small loss to plow lauds by tho hundreds of acres and lecelve no returns. The object in view should be worthy of a little thought and attention, which might lead to a betterment bet-terment of the conditions that now confront the dry farmer. |