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Show more than the trees can use you render ren-der your orchard absolutely drouth-proof." DRY FARMING CONGRESS. That the Dry Farming congress, to be held In Cheyenne, beginning next Tuesday, Is to do good by bringing to the attention of the west the possibilities possibil-ities of dry farming Is amply Illustrated Illus-trated in the statement made by E. R, Parsons of Parker, Colo., who, In glvlDg bis practical experience, states that ho commenced dry farming on 1(50 acres, from which he derived a revenue of a little more than $1,000 a year, until, by enlarging his acreage and conversing to moisture, he made large profits in raising steers, alfalfa, corn and fruit He says you must figure fig-ure that every jear will be a dry year. In his section of Colorado the minimum mini-mum precipitation during the growing for thirty years has been a little more than two inches. "To meet this without fear of failure," says Mr. Parsons, "we need at planting time at least three feet of moisture. The most profitable way of operating is naturally to raise crops as often as possible, which necessitates obtaining the greatest amount of moisture In the smallest amount of time. This can best be done by deep plowing, followed by fallowing. fal-lowing. "The moisture in the subsoil usually runs well after a wet winter like the present, but should it fall as low as 6 to 8 per cent in tho upper three feet, it had better be allowed to lie fallow for an entire season. "I dwell at length on the question of moisture to show that by eliminating all elements of chance wo can make of this dry farming almost an exact science. If you can secure three feet of moist soil by planting time and this soil contains 12 to 15 per cent water, the roots of your crops will go Into it and you thereby bring Into action three feet of soil. This Is tho secret of thirty and forty bushel crops Instead In-stead of fifteen or twenty bushels. "The practical depth for the small farmer to plow Is ten to twelve Inches, or as deep as he can go with one j team of three horses without keeping J an extra team and man for subsoiling. My experience with sod Is that if you plow It three or four inches, Kansas and Nebraska fashion, It dries out and does not rot, and sowing anything on it is like trying to raise a crop on a rag carpet. We disc our sod land when it Is wet In summer or fall, get- ting down about three Inches, then plow five Inches deeper, then disc again and fallow until spring, then disc and harrow until the ground Is as fine as old land before planting. "My alfalfa costs mo In actual work about 75 to 90 cents a ton in the stack. It costs the irrigator, in labor and water. $1 .90 to $2. The same is true with all crops. "To make an exact science of the orchard branch of dry farming, jou take no risks whatever by getting your moisture before planting your trees and then by bottling In the subsoil |