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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 ae Consciously as He Does for the Winter. I am convinced that the dry farming farm-ing movement has direct value In Its application to eastern as well as western west-ern conditions. The movement Is necessary, nnd therefore worth while, In western applications alone, and In IPs bearing on the welfare of those regions It should appeal to all the people; peo-ple; but It also has a bearing on agriculture agri-culture in the entire country such as our people do not yet understand. We habitually associate "dry farming" farm-ing" with dry regions; but the conservation conser-vation of water lies also at the foundation founda-tion of agriculture In most humid regions, re-gions, us well as In semi-arid regions, foi ;he crop i Jtunitd regions Is very generally determined by the pinch of the "dry spell" or drought, writes L. II. llailey, director of the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell university. In the Pry Farming Congress Con-gress Bulletin. As the strength of a wall is measured by its weakest course, so is the crop producing power of the year determined, under prevailing prevail-ing farming methods, by the pooreBt or least effective growing month. Farmers In tho scmlnrid regions are compelled to save the rainfall, and they prepare a definite program of conservation, making this program a part of their reckoning. Fiut the fanner In humid regions usuully makes little or no allowance or reckoning for drought, and when It comes he Is aught; and yet the drought and not the rainfall determines deter-mines his crops. We shall never have a good agriculture agricul-ture until the farmer prepares for dry times and drought Just us consciously ss lie 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 ranees from 11 inches down to 2S 1-3 inches, and if we exclude Ixing Island with its more uniform precipitation, the minimum becomes about 26H 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 27.12 Inches, In which there are four years with a total precipitation of less than 20 inches (one year only 16.44 Inches), und 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 seml-arld 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 (und a maximum maxi-mum of about 46'.), there are 17 years out of G3 In which the rainfall was less than 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 C3 (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 preclptation of 44 Vi Inches and a maximum of 69V4, 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. |