OCR Text |
Show BEST METHODS IN DRY BELT Experiments Carried On at Cheyenne 8tatlon Prove That Alternate Cropping It Best. Since 1905, the department of agriculture agri-culture has maintained several farms for the purpose of Investigating the best methods to be pursued in the dry farming belt One of these is located at Cheyenne, Wyo., in a region wher the rainfall is not in excess of 14 inches per year. Part of the land at this station has been cropped every year, and part of It every alternate year with careful summer tillage. During Dur-ing the year It lies fallow, says Orange Judd Farmer. The crops tested are alfalfa, potatoes and small grains. The result obtained from the continuous contin-uous cropped land are so poor as to preclude the possibility of permanently perma-nently successful agriculture under this system in the dry belt. On the other hand, the results obtained from land cropped only every other year, and receiving careful summer tillage in the meantime which stores up all the moisture possible, compare very favorably with the results from land in more humid regions. Upon a plat which had been fallowed fal-lowed In 1908, a yield of 61 bushels to the acre of potatoes of very good quality was harvested. A plat seeded to wheat grass in 1907 produced two crops, one season's yield being 2,440 pounds to the acre.. It would seem that this crop will prove very valuable now in providing forage in the dry belt. Two crops of brome grass have been harvested at the Cheyenne station, sta-tion, from land which had been pre viously fallowed, giving an average yield of 2,400 pounds per acre. Durum wheat planted upon fallowed land yielded 11 bushels per acre, and other crops gave proportionately high returns. |