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Show or foolish farmer, Indeed, who will undertake to wring prutlis from an arid soil without due regard to ap proved and test tried methods. The state of Vtah Is doing a wonderful won-derful work along the line of encouraging encour-aging the extension of dry-farmMtg methods. At nuh of the dry farm ex lerim-nt stations test are being made in the open In the growth of wheat, oats. corn, barley, rye, alfalfa, pnta toes, fruit and vegetables and the results re-sults of these experiments are published pub-lished and distributed without charg" to all win are Interested. We wish that every reader of this article could have for r'-ady reference and for a suidy of dry-fariiilng methods. Bulletin No 1 13. prepared by Professor leln A. Merrill Mer-rill and published by the t'tah Agricultural Agri-cultural college experiment station. It contains a report of seven years' Investigation In-vestigation of dry farming methods. The farmer who studies this ami the other bulletins Issued from the experiment ex-periment stations and prollts by the ex-pciletit ex-pciletit cs of the experimenters will b able to make his arid acres yield nn abundance scarcely believable, thus assisting in tiie redemption of our desert empires and in enriching the commonwealth And dry farming pays. That fact is Indisputably settled. President Wldstoe says I.Oihi bushcl of dry-farm dry-farm wheat contain as much nutritive matter as l,0-." bushels of wheat grown and kept under humid conditions. condi-tions. I'tah dry-farming wheat will gain ia per cent in weight on being shipped into eastern markets. That significant fact is worth remembering It is conceded by all that last year was a severe lest to dry farming theories the-ories because of the low precipitation; precipita-tion; yet the I'tah yield was good and the prollts fair. This year, under somewhat more favoiHOte conditions a big crop was harvested. Ii is estimated that ten to fifteen bushels td the acre will pay the expense ex-pense of farming by dry farming methods, where everything is hired. Twenty bushels yield a fair profit, and forty bushels amount to a bonanza. A great boon to the commonwealth Is neen in the Knlarged Homestead or Smool act Hundreds of citizens ot the state have laken up half sections anil some hundreds of settlers have taken up residence in I'tah. but millions mil-lions of acres still bristle with sugn and greavewood, awaiting coloniza lion. Homes for hundreds of thousand.", thou-sand.", of denizens of the crowded (-Hat can be made in these now desert wiisies. It Is up to the slate of I'tah and her people to lend encouragement to immigration and to dispel the pre vailing notion that new-comers i(r' not welcome among us, and that lnTe under skies that are ever blue, and al most perx'liial sunshine, slu-lterei from the rigors of the wintry blasti by mountain ranges, which affotd ar abundance of flh and game for vara Hon times and joy supreme tor loveri of scenic grandeur, can be found op port unities galore for comfort am wealth. Here thev may build tip com munities that will revel in the goo( things of life ll'-re labor may re reive Hs full reward. Here mav will Ing hearts and sturdy hands come lnt their own. DRY FARMING OPPORTUNITIES Thousands of acres of utah lands being cultivated without irrigation. It Is an Indisputable Fct That Dry Farming Pays, Failures Being Practically Prac-tically Unknown as Result of Scientific Tilling of Soils. The agricultural future of I'tah must depend lamely upon arid fanning. It matters not how many millions of Money we may spend on building irri g '.lion projects and in conserving the water supply of the state. There are million of ucres of our land thai can never be reached by the Irrigation canal there are vast empires of soil i hat will never blossom with anything out sage, greiiHcwood and cacti, except ex-cept they be redeemed by "dry-farming" methods. Of our 22.mm,nno acres of arable lund lews tliun ,'!,iMMl,noO acres can ever be Irrigated the remaining PJ.O00.0ou acres must produce, if at all, with only such moisture as fulls directly upon Iheni from the sky. The Mississippi valley farmer would probably wonder at such a statement. Ills acres get more of such precipitation than they need. Not so In I'tah. Here our des bit lands are likely to receive ten and! seldom a much as twenty inches of I precipitation In a year. In order to, coax from these parched soils a suffi j tient quantity of farm products to pay; for the trouble and yield u profit,' (clemlllc methods must be followed. It; is not enough to turn the crust and' plant the seed. The soil must first be analyzed the seed must be tested and It must be planted and cultivated with I due regard to the character of the' oil, the average precipitation In the1 locality being cultivated and the need of the variety of grain being grown, j This prospect Is by no means discouraging. dis-couraging. President John A. Wids-toti Wids-toti of the Agricultural college of I'tah, ' laj'B In the preface to his able treatise n "Dry Farming" In "The Rural Science Series." j "The possibilities of dry farming' sre stupendous. In the strength of youth we may have felt envious of the great ones of old; of Columbus looking look-ing upon the shadow of the greatest continent; of Halboa shouiliig greet ings to the resting PacUic; of Father F.scalatite. pondering upon the mystery mys-tery of the world, aluie, near the shores of America's dead seu We need harbor no envylngs, for in the jonquest of the non-Irrigated and non-irrigable non-irrigable desert are offered as fine oi-lotlunitics oi-lotlunitics as the world has known to, he makers and shaiwrs of empires. We stand before an undiscovered land; i through the restless, ascending cur-; rents of heated desert air the vision comes and goes. With striving eyes j :he desert Is seen covered with bios-! onilng fields, with churches and homes and schools, and, in the distance, dis-tance, with the vision is heard the laughter of happy children. The des- , ?rt w ill be conquered. "Nearly six-tenths of the earth's urraec receive an annual rainfall of ess than twenty Inches, and can be -eclaimed for agricultural purposes inly by Irrigation and dry-farming. A perfected world-system of irrigation will convert about one-tenth of thinj vast area into an Incomparably fruitful fruit-ful garden, leaving about one-half of, :he earth's land surface ! be reclaimed, re-claimed, If at all, by the methods or , 1ry farming. The noble system of modern agrlcuUure has been con trued almost wholly In count lies of ibuudant rainfall, and its applications ire those demanded for the agrlcul-tiral agrlcul-tiral development of humid regions. I'ntil recently. Irrigation was given 4f-ant attention, and dry-farming, with is world piobleni of eonqueriuK one- . lalf of the earth, whs not considered." The necessity of her people caused ('tab to become the pioneer of Ih" west In the adoption of irrigation that was in As early as ISTti rops were grown successfully without rrigation In Hear River valley. Cache valley and Davis county. In Halt Lake valley. 'During the 'SOs the thoughts of I'tah farmers turned to the posslbli les of the dry lands, for the growth f the population was more rapid than !he construction of canals. Many of he conservative farmers began to realize, too, that wheat production in irrigated lands, considering the cost of water, did not return a fair Interest 3n the capital Invested. As a result ome attempts at dry farming were made In the central part of the state, but with rather di ouiaglni: results." Today many thousands of acres are being cultivated without the addition of water by artificial means in every valley In the state from Cache valiev on the north to the Kaiiali denert and the Arizona strip on the ouih, and from the I'intah coiitiiry on the east to the Nevada liif Failures are practically prac-tically unknown. The proportion f yield lias depended msin'y on the Intelligence In-telligence Used liy the (.inner :tl pie-paling pie-paling his soil and planting the seed and the care used by him in cultivat ing mid gathering the eld I'reeipi tntion and weather conditions ha" become of minor. If not ptaitlciv negligible quantities. The profits have , varied somewhat, according to the varieties of grains grown. Man) farmers have nut heeded the gratis! ndv;ce given out bv tne experiment station ex per' s. They have either plowed the soli lio deeply or not de p-ly p-ly enough, have grown varte'lew of grain Dot suited ! 'h-tr so,! cmli , Hons and rlimste and have refu-e up abandon old and unprovable method As a eooswquence they have harely mote than paid expenses, while tVir neighlsirs have made handsome profit Arid farnilnit anno' succeed on any o t-er than thoroughly eierinPe plan, p doe not have the great advantage that humid farming enjoys It i re sent obstacle wbnh have been on'y slightly overcome in all the rennirtes of the past It is either an 10'repid , |
