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Show CROPS IN DRY AREAS' Much Depends Upon Amount of Rainfall and the Season. i If Attempt Is Mads to Crow Grain Every Year Plan Will Undoubtedly Undoubted-ly Fall Where Fifteen Inches of Water Is Maximum. (By pnor. THOMAS "HAW.) I The answer to the question as to how frequently crops may be grown In dry areae. depends upon two things. The first Is the amount of precipitation precipita-tion that falls and the second Is the season at which It falls. Moth have an important bearing on the answer to this question. Where the precipitation Is not more than, say, IS Inches In a year, as for Instance In Montana, the frequency fre-quency with which crops may be grown will depend upon the character of the farming. If the attempt Is made to grow crops every year. It will undoubtedly fall, because 16 inches of rainfall In a year will not grow good crops of grain every year In an unbroken succession. In cropping crop-ping with grain It will be found necessary nec-essary at least occasionally to devote one season to the conserving of moisture mois-ture to make It possible to grow good crops In the year or years that follow. fol-low. This assumption Implies that where the rainfall Is 15 Inches and probably less than that, good crops of grain cannot be looked for every year with that amount of rainfall, and for the reason thst good crops of grain cannot be grown every year on the same land, unless the rain should fsll at Just the right time to meet the needs of the crops. This does follow In some Instances, but in some Instances It does not, hence the growing of grain crops every year becomes. In a sense, a sort of gamble. It there Is enough of rain It will be a success. If there Is not enough It will be a failure. How shall this contingency be met? The answer to that question Is the central thought In this article. It Is met in two ways. The first Is to summer-fallow the land one year and to grow on It a crop of small , grain the next year. This method has some advantages and some disadvantages. disad-vantages. Among the former are the certainty of a good crop on the land, even though the year should be dry, and the proper cleaning of the land, because of the frequency of the summer sum-mer fallow. Among the latter are, getting but one crop In two years, the depletion of the soil fertility, and & the absence of a rotation that will j; keep the land In a mecbanjf A bal- t ance. nut thla method m. answer fairly well for many yea,' It will ii not, however, answer for all time, forJJ the time will eventually come when the soil will be depleted of Its fertility. fertil-ity. There Is. however, a better method? than the above. It is to adopt the following fol-lowing rotations: Summer fallow, followed by a crop of grain. Tbe grain Is followed by fodder com or by some crop that Involves cultivation while It Is being grown. This is followed fol-lowed by a grain crop, and the grain crop. In turn, by summer fallow. This means that three crops may be grown la four years, one of which will be fodder com. The great advanUge from growing fodder corn once In four years over summer fallowing twice la four years Is that the fodder con furnishes food for live stock. It tr .f be asked why not make the fodJer com take the place of the summer fallow and cut out the aummer fallow.' The answer Is, first, that an occasional occa-sional snmmer fallow Is necessary where the conservation of moisture Is to be sufficiently maintained where the rainfall Is less thsn IS Inches la a year. If the rainfall Is more thsa IS Inches. It would probably be possible pos-sible to eliminate the summer fallow altogether. In humid areas It Is not necessary to have the aummer fallow to retain moisture. If It, Is maintained main-tained at all It Is as a means to aid In the effectual destruction of weeds. But the four-year rotation Is not la Itself sufficient to meet every exigency. exigen-cy. It to a marked Improvement over the two-year rotation, but It does not provide for the maintenance of fertility fer-tility In the land, nor does It provide for supplying the land with humus, which It so much needs la a dry country. How can this be sccom-pllshedf sccom-pllshedf ft can only be accomplished by laying the land down to grass occasionally, oc-casionally, or Its equivalent That equivalent. In dry areas, can be best accomplished by laying the land down to alfalfa for a limited term of years. This will mean that the rotation will be as follows: Summer fallow, grain, cultivated crop, grain, alfalfa for a few years and grain again, followed by the rotation mentioned above-Tils above-Tils probaby will be the rotation most commonly followed In dry areas In the years that are at band. |
