OCR Text |
Show fRID FARMING 1 "DRY FARMING" IN UTAH FROM AN AUSTRALIAN VIEW. Report by W. Strawbridge, Surveyor General of South Australia. "r"1e"ff there "for Salt Lake eity," passing Las Vegas nud Santa Fe. At both places the rainfall has increased during the last three years, and farmers farm-ers axe obtaining good crops and doing do-ing very well; but previously, when the rainfall was less, and under the old system of cultivation, there were many failures. Salt Lake City is in the State of Utah, west of the Wasatch Wa-satch Mountains. Several parts of 'this State ore very dry, the average rainfall being but 12 in., and dry farming farm-ing is largely carried1 on with more or IIess success1. This I learned at Washington, Wash-ington, when I obtained a letter of introduction in-troduction to Professor Widtsoc, the Director of the Utah Agricultural College. The day before I arrived he had unfortunately lost a child, and had to make arrangements for the funeral; but he very kindly furnished me with some details of the College and form) work, and handed me over to one of the officers, with instructions instruc-tions to show me over the farm and drive me to some of the principal farms in the district. The Experimental Experi-mental Farm is" on1 the plain, northwest north-west of the College. The yields this season of the principal wheats grown were: Turkey Red, 28.25 bushels per acre; Winter La1 Salle,' 32.15;' Red Chaff," 30.13; New ' Zealand,- 28.25; Egyptian, is.oo;-' Gold Coin, 19.80. These were grown 'on carefully prepared' pre-pared' ground,' but without ' manure. The farm is near the hills; and, as" in the last few years there were good snowstorms, I preferred to sec 'some of the farms further out on the plains. Out in the' Cache Valley. The Cache Valley is an extensive plain along the Logan River, 'between low hills. A good) deal of the flat is under irrigation; but alA the slopes 'and low rises, which .rc above the irrigation channels, have been dry fanned for a number of years. The rainfa.ll, or, rather, precipitation, which includes snow, was unusually high -for-thc-tost-ycar-and -a-halfvbut -pre- vious.'lo .thaifc.for a: long. period the all-was .low as-the average for" 13 years was but 134 '; ad for the I four years 1902 to 1905 the precipi- I tation was, respectively, 13.33, 13-97. I 13.52 and 12.50; so I was anxious to know how the farmers, who were reported re-ported successful, had fared durini . .the dry periods. Professor Widtsoc gatvc me the names of the two farm-ers farm-ers who ha'dl been longest in the district, dis-trict, and were successful and reliable. The first wc called on was Mr. Peterson, Pet-erson, about twelve miles westerly from Logan. I-tfc was not at home, ' but his three sons, who assisted in working the farm, were. The cEdcst, w!k seemed a very capable and intelligent intel-ligent man, showed us over the farm, .which comprises 700 acres. They had been there thirty years, and crop a little over 200 acres each year, fallow- I ing a similar area. They grow a good 1 dal of lucerne, which looked well 1 after the third cutting that summer; tut the season was no criterion, as it had been the best for years. They only grow Odessa wheat, .which seems to suit the locality or soil better than any other, though it is a soft wheat and not so good for milling as many other varieties. The average yield is .from 20 to 25 bushels, but has never been less than 15 in the driest season, when they had but 9 or 10 in. of rain. They plow 8 in. deep, harrow the land several times during the season, and after rain in the growing crop. The soil is a fairly deep, light-brown sandy loam on the slopes where the wheat is, and a darker color where .the lucerne is grown. No manure is used for. the wheat, but the stable inanurc is put on the lucerne. . Worked Out His Own Problem. We then drove about two miles further fur-ther to the farpi of Mr. Farrcll. He waws busy with a steam thresher, but kindly left his work to answer my 1uestions. He did-not know anything of what is called the Campbell sys-ter:. sys-ter:. His farm contains about 1700 -acres, and he has .about 1000 unler cro-p, ibut does not usually crop so much; and -re has been farming in this locality for twenty-five years. Ho lias never had a failure. This season the part threshed went 30 bushels .to.. the acre, and .the rest would -aivcnage 20 or moi He -used-119 manure. He .estimated .the .oats at .60 bushels and the lM.rle ..bushels .per cr, The ' I 1 main crop of wheat grdwn by him j each year is Gold Coiit or Fortyfold, 1 and the lowest return he has hatl1 in I the driest years was 15 bushels. To f show the b'encfit of tilling the soil in the summer to conserve the moisture (for an experiment) he plowed 90 , acres of his land a foot deep and har rowed it 14 times. The neighbors thought him mad, and said he would . have no crop; but it turned out the I very driest season they had had. The rain fail was but o in. for the year, and he reaped 40 bushels of wheat to the acfc, when nearly all the crops n found him were a comparative fail-tire. fail-tire. The soil on this farm) is similar to the last one, a light-brown, sandy loam, but it is higher Up the hill, and the subsoil is much looser and llghtcf, and consequently not so good for retaining re-taining moisture. He was quite ccr- tain that, with cafeful tillage, good J crops could be grown on an average foil of 10 to 11 in. per year, provided the soil was retentive, and not a loose, porous, gravel undcfitcath. I considered consid-ered the information obtained here most valuable, as the success and good farming of these men was well known to the officers of the College and other persons in the district. The soil is very similar, and not at all superior, su-perior, to that over most of the Black , Rock Plains, and the only advantage ' that I could sec is that the Cache Val- ') ley is about 4000 ft. above sea level, j and the heat is not so oppressive, though it is very frequently from 90 degrees to 97 degrees in the shade f during the summer months of May, I June, July and August. The more I elevated plains have this disadvantage: 1 That the winters are longer and1 cold ly cr and the frosts arc more severe. iThat snowfall is, as a rule, very light; but this is recorded in the annua! 'precipitation' 'pre-cipitation' tat the various Weather 1 Bureaus. ! Wheat Yield in Utah. T traveled through the State of Utah, which is one of the driest. There is comparatively little of it under cultivation, cul-tivation, excepting by irrigation. The J State comprises about 52 million I acres, and of that area only some 900,- 000 acres are yet cultivated. Six Experimental Ex-perimental Stations were started in the State at the end of 1903; but the records arc not of sufficient length of time to be of very much importance. The ..soil is generaflly light, sandy loam.;, parts sapdy, , with a loanu.ond cliy, suvsoil; and in places gravel. The station near Nephi produced nite crops this last season, as the fairtfalt was not bad, having been 13.98 in. for the year prior to August, when the1 crops were reaped. The wheat was a'H cut and stacked, but none threshed. The varieties sown were Gold Coin, Kofod, Turkey and Durum; estimated yield, from 25 to 30 bushels per acre. But the fairly high yield "is accounted for, as the previous year the rainfall was exceptionally 'high, being 18.48 inches. In 1904 the rainfall was 15.30 inches. This was the first season, and the landl wtas not fallowed; the average aver-age yield was 20.30 bushels from nine variet?ies of wheats, which averaged from 15 to 24 ibushcls per acre. The year following, 1905, an average of 16.90 bushels was obtained of Turkey Red wheat, on a rainfall of 11.29 inches. Mr. Boswcll, the manager of this station, recommends ploughing eight to ten inches deep in no case less than seven. He ploughs and harrows har-rows the land directly the crop is off, it is then left until nain or weeds appear, ap-pear, and harrowed again. lie lightly harrows after each rain, or, if weeds arc thick, disc ploughs; before seeding seed-ing he discs and! harrows again. lie generally ploughs the land three times, and harrows after each rain up to sowing, and until the crop is up several inches he harrows after rain, and always across the drills. One of the Utah Stations. At another station in Sevier County Coun-ty the (average precipitation was 12.82 inches for fourteen years, and in 1905 an average of nearly ten bushels was obtained on ia fall of 1 1.48 inches. In 1904, the first season of the farm, an average of 10.80 bushds of Turkey Red wheat was obtained on a fall of 13.19 inches. Another station is in Washington County, which is situated in the southwest comer of the State of Utah. It has1 a very high temperature, tempera-ture, often being from 90 to 105 degrees de-grees during the summer months. On a rainfall of 10.87 inches, when but 2.87 fell during the growing -period, an average of 9.15 bushels per were was reaped. At Tooele County farm, the average, precipitation for nine years being 14.3 imches, returns were obtained ob-tained as follows: In 1905, rainfall 12.39 inches, 13.45 bushels per acre; in j6, rainfall 12.99 inches, 16.40 bushels por acre. Six other varieties, yielding from 11.6 .to -13.9$ bushels Peilrcre, were also .reaped.. At most en these stations .the yield for the "last two years was good, as the rainfall was above tlfc average, but the yields of past seasons arc interesting, as showing that with cafeful cultivation nd suitable seed good crops can and have been obtained with a small rainfall. rain-fall. For about twenty-five miles southwesterly from Ncphi there is more or less cultivation, mostly under irrigation. |