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Show DRY FARMING ISSUE Movement Has Direct Value in Application to East. Never Have Good Agriculture Until Farmer Prepares for Dry Times Just as Consciously as He Does for the Winter. I am convinced that the dry farming farm-ing movement has direct value in its ipplication to eastern as well as western west-ern conditions. The movement is accessary, and therefore worth while, ,n its western applications alone, and in its bearing on the welfare of those regions It should appeal to all the people; peo-ple; but it also has a bearing on agri-:ulture agri-:ulture in the entire country such as 3ur people do not. yet understand. We habitually associate "dry farming" farm-ing" with dry regions; but -the conser-pation conser-pation of water lies also at the founda-:ion founda-:ion of agriculture in most humid-re-;ions, as well as in semi-arid regions, .'or the crop in humid regions is very generally determined by the pinch of ;he "dry spell" or drought, writes L. H. Bailev. director of the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell jniversity, in the Dry Farming Con-jress Con-jress Bulletin. As the strength of a Rail Is measured by its weakest :ourse, so Is the crop-producing power jf the year determined, under prevailing prevail-ing farming methods, by the poorest )r least effective growing month. Farmers in the semi-arid regions re compelled to save the rainfall, and :hey prepare a definite program of :onservation, making this program a part of their reckoning. But the farmer In humid regions usually makes little or no allowance or reckoning for drought, and when it :omes he is caught; and yet the drought and not the rainfall determines deter-mines his crops. We shall never have a good agriculture agricul-ture until thp fnrmpp nrpnarps for dry times and drought just as consciously as he prepares for winter. The "dry spell" of summer is usually considered consid-ered to be a calamity; it Is probable that a properly regulated system of husbandry would make such spells to be advantageous. The annual precipitation at Ithaca, In central New York, is approximately 33 Inches; yet there is record of a year with a rainfall of only 21.20 Inches. The average recorded yearly rainfall for the state of New York ranges from 51 Inches down to 28 1-3 Inches, and If we exclude Long Island with Its more uniform precipitation, the minimum becomes about 26 Inches, or approaching closely to dry farming conditions. There are parts of the state in which the mean precipitation pre-cipitation over a series of years is under 23 inches. I have before me the records for 48 years of one station in western New York, with an annual average of 27.52 Inches, In which there are four years with a total precipitation of less than 20 Inches (one year only 16.44 Inches), and two years with a total of 20.02 and 20.61. Were it not for other aids than rainfall of the particular year (there Is probably a low evaporation due to proximity of large bodies of water, and water is held in the soil from other years), this would be a semi-arid semi-arid place; for a region Is usually held to be Bemi-arid if its precipitation precipita-tion is less than 20 inches. It is the precipitation of the "growing "grow-ing months," however, that largely determines de-termines the crop. In the dry section just mentioned, there are 26 years of the 48 in which the monthly rainfall was less than one and one-half Inches (which is very dry) In one or more of the months of May, June, July, August; Au-gust; and there are ten other years in which the rainfall In one or more of these months was between two Inches and one and one-half Inches (which usually indicates droughty conditions). Even at Ithaca, with its mean precipitation precipi-tation of about 33 inches (and a maximum maxi-mum of about 46), there are 17 years out of 53 in which the rainfall wes less 1hr.n one and one-half Inches in one or more of these four growing months, and 14 other years in which it was less than two inches, making 31 years in the 53 (or about three-fifths of the years) in which droughty conditions con-ditions prevailed.- Even in a section in western New York with a mean annual an-nual preciptation of 41 Inches and a maximum of 69V2, there were five years out of 20 In which the rainfall was less than two inches in one or more of the four growing months. If to these four main growing months were added April and September, all the foregoing figures of droughty conditions con-ditions would be more marked. |