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Show DRYLAND EXTREMISTS Some Unknown Quantity Governs Gov-erns the Returns. Men Who Spend Much Time In City Office Not Competent to Write on Intricate Subject as Those In Close Contact. To see thirty or forty bushels of grain on dry land with but fifteen inches of rainfall, and then drive for miles through fields that will not give back the seed with the same tillage, and possibly slightly more rainfall, ought to convince our dry farming enthusiasts en-thusiasts that the natural moisture of the soil or subsoil, or the moisture-holding moisture-holding capacity of the soil, or some other quality seldom evident at first, largely governs the returns from dry farming. We have recently come across even more extreme differences than the ones noted. We have seen good to abundant crops on seemingly as dry land as could be found with but little attention given to dry farming methods; meth-ods; while not far from It almost total to-tal failure where every mechanical detail de-tail of dry farming had been carefully carried out, says the Dakota Farmer. These things convince us more than ever that men who spend most of their time in a city office or who visit but one or two strips of country are not so competent to write upon this intricate subject as are some of those whose every working hour brings them In close contact with the soil and possibly with the mortgage. All too many Jump at conclusions which every-day facts will not Justify, and make assertions altogether too general, and that are not only misleading, mis-leading, but that we know are not true. We are glad to note that there 1b a more frank admitting, by very many of these teachers and experimenters, that it takes a certain amount of moisture in all soils to grow a crop, and that moisture has to come from the heavens, from the subsoil or be conserved by accumulation, and that moisture cannot be created where It does not exist They must admit, too, that there are soils and much of them, that will never make anything but very uncertain uncer-tain returns where there are but fifteen fif-teen inches of rainfall. It is easy to make glowing assertions, that are true enough with many soils and subsoils, but to get onto a dry, hard-baked prairie, with an almost Impervious subsoil unless It does hold that peculiar pecu-liar quality which responds so quickly to culture and make it produce at all worth while, is quite another thing. There Is much dry soil which will never do It, unless with an expenditure expendi-ture of time, tillage, horse flesh and patience not one man In a hundred possesses, and then In many, many Instances In-stances it will not. We know It is much easier, and very much more popular, to Join with the extremists in this thing, point to the almost everywhere-to-be-found individual in-dividual successes and shut our eyes to the discouraged, misled and possibly possi-bly ruined, and assert that this, that and the other system will wring enormous enor-mous and.certain yields from any and all dry or desert lands; but we know there Is another and larger side to It all, and our sympathies go out to the man who must experiment long and patiently at his own expense before he knows whether his land will respond re-spond to dry farming methods or not; whether yields sufficient will come to him on his own particular piece of dry land to pay for every other year tillage, and the extra labor and expense ex-pense he must go to before he can hope to equal ordinary farm land returns. |