| Show DRY FARM NO DREAM ance considered somewhat of a myth now stern reality wonderful thine have been achieved in growing crop with very little rain man must constantly conserve Corr erva moisture Molt ture we acknowledge that we were once st t the opinion that dry fanning farming was considerable ol 01 a pipe dream and wo we till still believe that it la Is sometimes con cider sider ably magnified by the real estate agent in planting settler settlers on the arid lands ot of the west write writes A W trow in dakota farmer yet not ing lug the fact that many people have been deceived by the glowing stories of railing raising rope crops ith little rain won darful thine things have been teen achieved in growing enormous crops with a very light rainfall it la in true that in many of the semiarid ld districts the poor homesteader has fallen down in bla his attempt attempts to raise crops this 13 la a measure can be attributed to bla his lack of knowledge of conservation of moisture ture or to use another expression the lack of economy of moisture the man who is accustomed to farming tannins where there is a superabundance of moisture cannot easily understand how a farmer tamer would go about it to raise from 40 to 60 50 bushels of wheat with from 12 to 15 inches of rain fall but there are a few places in the far west where this la Is actually done it was our privilege leze a few days ago I 1 to see whytt turning out 60 50 bushels to the acre in a locality where the united states weather bureau report reports but 13 12 inches of rain falling during the past year but the men who are doing this aris certainly dentine scientific dry farmers oa on this same land many farmere farmers went broke 20 years ago they tried to follow the same plan of f growing wheat which they were accustomed cus tomed to in the humid districts of the east and it la Is said sald that at least nine tenths of them went to the wall and the land that was deserted at that time Is in now among the highest priced wheat land in the united states sell inc trig at from 40 to 76 an acre A crop failure in that locality of late deurs Is but practically half hall of all of the land Is summer fallowed every year wo we made the remark that it seemed tough to farm land two years to get one crop but one of these formers replied that he be considered it a mighty sight eight better to get a double crop from one ceding needing and one plow ing even thought it dian didn t como oft ener than in two years than to get only half halt a crop every year while one half of the farm Is into wheat the olber ower balf ie Is being plowed in and harrowed and prepared prep arld for the succeeding year it Is here that the corrugated roller Is used to make a firm seed bed that will not dry out and whenever a rain comes the ground that Is ix not in crop Is to harrowed to prevent its checking and to make the dust mulch to conserve the moisture umatilla county oregon now boasts of being the largest producer of wheat of any country in the world and aleo also of being one of the few in tho cagle brov farming Is a we boltero bell that the farmers of our humid districts will do well to pay some attention to the methods of these dryland dry land farmere farmers if one extreme fol lows iowa another as it usually does we may expect a series of dry seasons and some of the principles of the dry farmer may come in good play these i principles are so safe and sound that bey they must be regarded of great value and the general plan of successful semiarid farming can be applied in lome some degree to the growing of almost every crop in a large proportion of that territory embraced within the missouri valley and in dry seasons it ie a aso also applicable to the growing of most cultivated crops in the mississippi valley |
