Show F r 4 r t FRUIT AND ALFALFA I Among Easiest Crops to Raise on Dry Land Says Expert r Well Known Western Horticulturist Gives Reasons for Stating They I Can Easily Be Raised In an Arid Country I I At the recent Dry Farpi congress I held at fillings Mont Mr E 11 Par eons a well known Colorado horticulturist I horticult-urist who has made dry farmIng a lose stud and has been qulto sue I be sful gave an Interesting talk Among othor things he said l I I It may surprise some of you to know that If any man wore to ask line what I considered the easiest I crops to ralso on the dry faun my I answer would bo fruit and alfalfa I Trees and alfalfa are both deep ooted and this Is half the battle Infighting In-fighting drought On my ranch we tplow from ten to twelve Inches for all our crops In order that their roots may get down as deep ns possible In the shortest possible time We first secure the moisture for fruit trees by plowing a year ahead of time and digging holes in the fall before planting and with two or three feet of moisture In the ground we do not care whether a dry year domes or not At the last congress I cplalned how to handle an orchard Jfib that no loss could possibly result tram drought and I wish I could say the same of winter ldlling but though Rjjro cannot actually prevent this wo lean almost eliminate It by careful ijholro of tested varieties In different differ-ent parts of tho world even In des arts we find trees growing sometimes some-times where nothing else will grow In the dry orchard the farmer can give his tree almost as much water as tho Irrigator If ho wants to It Is imply a question of area the greater the area the larger the supply of moisture w mois-ture and the roots will penetrate alt al-t most any distance to obtain this mols tare and In a very short space of time JWhen tho trees are young It Is Im possible for them to uso up all this moisture and the surplus Is stored In the subsoil for future use and when Eve have our trees standing in 15 feet lot damp soil as Is actually the case Iln my dry orchard at tho present moment we care little or nothing fortify for-tify years The trees In the dry orchard selFdom sel-Fdom winterkill because they do not become too sappy You can not fill Ian Iron or any other pipe with water and expect It not to burst when the frost comes so with trees Thou ands of trees are killed In the west every year by late Irrigating and I want to tell you that in the deadly winter of 98 and 99 when thousands jfpf apple trees were lost In the Irrigated Irrigat-ed ranches we did not lose one Now jflf it were not for the warm spells which cause the sap to rise this would not happen In Canada for Instance It does not matter how wet the trees become The south side of the tree suffers the most because It Is the warm side Some of our agriculturists and experimenters ex-perimenters tell you not to plant alfalfa al-falfa on sod they know too well how sod Is usually plowed In this country three or four Inches deep like ribbons rib-bons spread out to dry nut you caij raise alfalfa on sod and on sandy land will do better than I any other way We never wait for sod to rot wo rot It with the disc We start In the first wet day and disc It and crossdisc It cutting It all to pieces as deep as the disc will go then wo plow It eight Inches turning It completely over and disc It the other oth-er side then work It as line as old land before planting Fall plowing and spring planting are best and the seed should bo put in during the wettest wet-test period of the year about half an Inch to an Inch deep There Is always a certain risk of sprouting and dryIng dry-Ing out beoro the next rain comes when small seeds are planted during the heat of summer The press drill i Is much better forr this work than the disc drills I am not much In favor I i of rolling or packing except for seed I germination my experience being that the first good storm will pack your I land and settle It more than you I I could do It In a weeks work i II i This crop is of vital importance to the diversified farmer for with the I same amount of work he can raise I twice as much feed as Is possible with any other crop |