Show DRY FARMING TO AID NATIONS I Congressman Mondell Makes Reply to James J Hill on Diminution of Food Supplies Representative Frank W Mondell of Wyoming president of the Dr Farm congress and International Dry Farm exposition mado a speech recently re-cently on dry farming In the course of which ho touched upon tho relation rela-tion of this sort of agriculture to the meat supply He said In part James J Hill of tho Great Northern North-ern railroad who Is an accepted au < thorlty on such matters has recently called the attention of tho country to the fact that nt the present rate ol Increase of consumption with no great Increase of production we would soon cease to bo a wheat exporting country coun-try and before long would ho compelled com-pelled to Import a portion of our breadstuffs Surely this Is a contln gency fraught as It Is with momentous mo-mentous consequences that may well challenge tho thoughtful attention of f our people And It Is a most striking and fortunate coincidence that as wo near tho balance between bread supply sup-ply and demand dry farming with Its splendid promise of n vast Increase In-crease In our wheat yield points tho er way to a tremendous Increase In our food supply Some may say that this Increase In our supply of breadstuffs In wheat and ryefor rye will yield well with less moisture than any other cereal must be at the expense of our beef and mutton supply a considerable portion of which now comes from the lands being nnd to be occupied by dry farmers Those who argue thus have taken but a superficial view of the situation When the dry farmer has cultivated all the lands In the Intormountntn west that will successfully grow crops without Irrigation there will still remain millions of acres of grazing graz-ing lands and for each acre that the dry farmer takes from the open range ho will produce In cheap forage In addition to his grain Infinitely more In feeding value than the sparse grasses his land formerly produced Our methods will gradually change The largo herds and flocks will be more or less divided depending upon local conditions winter grazing with Its losses and dangers will be abandoned aban-doned for winter feeding and the aggregate ag-gregate of beef and mutton will not be diminished but Increased In the region to which the enlarged homestead law applies there still remains re-mains about 375000000 acres of unreserved un-reserved public lands A small portion por-tion of this area Is desert A largo portion Is essentially arid or has a heavy clay or gumbo soil and can only be made to yield profitable crops through reclamation by Irrigation Some of ItIs mineral land and much of It Is rough and rocky and only fit for grazing purposes However after making all these deductions there still remains a vast acreage of mesa bench and tablelands table-lands on the public domain which has sufficient rainfall and the proper kind of soil for tho maintenance of many thousand prosperous dryfarm homes And In the same general region are millions of acres of land now In private priv-ate ownership acquired through railroad rail-road land grants and otherwise heretofore here-tofore used In largo tracts for pasturage and grazing purposes whlc hare h-are gradually being broken up and sold at comparatively low prices which may be successfully tilled under un-der dry farming methods |