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Show OR! f ARMING EXPERTS IN I CONVENTION AT CREIENNE Questions of Great tntrest to Farmers of the Arid West Discussed by Agricultural Authorities. Cheyenne. When the third Trans-Missouri Trans-Missouri Dry Farming congress opened open-ed its sessions on Tuesday, there were over BOO delegates present, with Hundreds of others on belated trains, being unable to reach this city for the opening session because of the heavy snow storm, A blanket of snow more than a foot deep greeted the delegates arriving in Cheyenne, as nature's na-ture's assurance that "dry farming" was partly a misnomer in Wyoming. The streets of Cheyenne were elaborately elabor-ately decorated in honor of the visitors. vis-itors. The opening program Included an address by Governor B. B. Brooks of Wyoming, president of the congress, and the reading of papers by state delegates on various phases and problems prob-lems of dry farming. F. C. Bowman of Boise, Ida., chairman chair-man of the executive committee, call-td call-td the congress to order. After an invocation in-vocation by Rev. George C. Rafter of Cheyenne, Governor B. B. Brooks of Wyoming delivered a short address. Short welcoming addresses were also made by Mayor P. S. Cook of Cheyenne, and Thomas Haney, president pres-ident of the Cheyenne Industrial Indus-trial club, Samuel H. Lea, state engineer of South Dakota, responded to the welcoming addresses in behalf of the delegates. The afternoon session was taken up with calling the roll of the states represented and a number of short addresses were delivered by delegates representing western states. Discussion of the proper methods of treating arid soils occupied the attention atten-tion of the congress on Wednesday. The debate followed the reading of reports from the experimental farms and agricultural stations of twenty-one twenty-one states. Government experts, who have gathered their knowledge from long Investigation, and practical farmers, whose knowledge comes from the wresting of a livelihood from the soil participated. The question that produced the most lively debate of the session was the method of conserving the moisture cf soils in regions where rainfall is light, by treatment immediately after planting. Edwin F. Norris, governor of Montana, Mon-tana, was unanimously chosen president presi-dent of the congress fpr the ensuing year. The last hours of the dry farming congress were given over to the consideration con-sideration of resolutions, and the delegates dele-gates were unanimous in their support sup-port of the measure tending to embrace em-brace the scope of the congress and aid the development of arid land. The resolutions were in most cases adefpt-ed adefpt-ed without debate. After a struggle in which the name "International Dry Farming" congress'' was advocated by many delegates, the name of the organization was changed to the "Dry Farmihg congress" and resolutions -were adopted providing for a permanent headquarters for the congress, con-gress, the spread of dry farming information infor-mation and the gathering of dry farming farm-ing information throughout the world. In this latter project government assistance as-sistance is asked. Billings, Mont., was selected as the place of the next meeting, which will be held in November. The dates will be fixed by the executive committee. John Henry Smith of Salt Lake City made an eloquent address on the development de-velopment of the west, and spoke at length on the work of the pioneers of Utah and other western states who had by irrigation and dry farming, conquered the desert. |