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Show H A PESSIMIST. H The Rocky Mountain Husbandman M while professing a rcat love for ag- H riculturc, and while loudly proclaim- H ing its long years of service in the H development of Montana agriculture, H never loses an opportunity to take a H fling at dry farming. For some H months pr.st the general tenor of that H papqr wguld lend' its readers to be- H Hove that there is somehow a conflict H bctwcQii irrigation farming and dry V farming. In its issue of July 30th, we note iat it takers occasion to point out the t W, 1 v' ' :, A & m failure of dry farming in that state H 1 In the issue referred to, the following follow-ing article is found: "The great apostle ofMuxy land farming is going to demonstrate ihat he can not makefgood his claim in Montana IIc"is to operate ten farms in Eastern Montana and will fail from a financial standpoint. There arc bu. few seasons we know when there is not sufficient moisture in the spring to give winter wheat a splendid start, tout the trouble is in not having it moist sufficient when- the grain is in bloom. Very early sown wheat' gcn crally doc very nicely but the condition- for sowing in the fall arc not always- the best. Frequently ' winter wheat sown the last of August dou not come up until the next spring, and these conditions can not be changed unless we make the country over again. Mr. Campbell, however, thinks his system is a winner, but with ten farms on his hands he will be kept pretty hv.tty, and if he were left to the products of these farms to sustain the people who do his work they would go pretty hungry." It seems strange that in tills enlightened" en-lightened" age, any progressive farmer, farm-er, and much less the Editor of a modern farm paper, would imply that an experiment farm would produce enough tp pay expenses. In this state the Legislature appropriates some $10,000.00 for the maintenance of six experimental farms, and these farms have ucver, since their establishment, estab-lishment, brought back anything like the amount paid out in any one year, but the establishment of these farms has meant millions 06 dollars to the. state. By the. aid of these experimental experi-mental farms, it lias been demonstrated demon-strated beyond a doubt that .arid farming can be carried on successfully, success-fully, and as a result the lands be longing to the state have increased in value by more than 100 per cent. Then there are thousands of acres that have been put under cultivation and increased in value from $1.50 to $30.00 per acre. On these dry lands this year there will be produced, in this state alone, hundreds of thousands thou-sands of bushels of grain, and the establishment es-tablishment of these farms has brought back to the state a hundred times more than their cost. So it is with the Campbell farm in Montana, and a good farm paper would lend this new industry every support instead in-stead of attempting to cast any reflection re-flection upon it. We append a few more clippings which shows the attitude at-titude of the paper referred to on- the question of dry farming, and while it makcs.no particular attacks upon the industry,-in every issue ,it insinuates that 'ilScair never be niad successful there:'.. "Irrigation can be depended on to bring a crop every year. "Montana will grow a large crop this year, owing to the fact that the state has two million acres under irrigation. ir-rigation. , v "A farmer who was"in fromabou& thirty miles, sq"uth ofi the city, gave a gloomy picture of the dry land grain fields. He says a rain would scarcely save many of them now." From Professors Linficld and At-kinson, At-kinson, of the Montana Station, we learn that the conditions for dry farming ore just as encouraging in Montana as in Utah. There can be no conflict. The value of irrigation waters to the lands of the West has never been questioned, but it is the desire of every lover of this Western country to sec all of its lands put under cultivation, and there arc millions mil-lions of acres that can never be reclaimed re-claimed except by dry farming methods. meth-ods. There is not now, never has been, and never will be a conflict between these two industries, but they arc hand-maid .both to be used for the making of a great agricultural empire em-pire out of the Rocky Mountain country. |