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Show DRY FARMING. That was a great rain we had on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it is a lasting pity that it didn't come a month sooner. A gentleman from the country said yesterday that half the dry farms were in a desperate state through Utah. Some of the grain is only just a little above the ground now, which suggests the idea that to make dry farming a success so far as raising grain is concerned, or at least wheat, it should be planted in the autumn. Some of the hardier varieties of wheat in this climate could be planted plant-ed the last of September, so it would be getting a good start in the fall and be ready with the first warming of the ground in the spring to rapidly grow. Of course, grain that is just out of the ground now will not mature at all. It will do for fodder, perhaps, but that isn't the thing to be desired. Dry farming ought to be planned to get such a start in the autumn after the first rains that, with the soaking of the ground in the winter, it will go on to maturity without further help. Another thing about it, before men plant dry farms they ought to sink shallow holes in different places in their fields to see if, first, there is not a heavy substrata of alkali, and. below that and too near the surface to permit a crop to mature, the hardpan which is encountered encoun-tered more or less all over the west. The foothills in California are beautiful in the spring, but in a month the vegetation withers and dies, and the reason of that is because the hardpan is so near the .--urface that the little moisture in the ground is soon absorbed and the roots of the plants can go no lower to find moisture. mois-ture. Some places in the foothills fruit raising is a success, but to accomplish that men sink down to the hardpan and then blow it to pieces with powder before they plant the trees or vines. About the most persistent thing is the grape. With half a chance the grapevine will go thirty feet to find water. |