Dry-Farming : A System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low Rainfall Part 15

The pumping of water for agricultural purposes is not at all new.

According to Fortier, two hundred thousand acres of land are irrigated with water pumped from driven wells in the state of California alone. Seven hundred and fifty thousand acres are irrigated by pumping in the United States, and Mead states that there are thirteen million acres of land in India which are irrigated by water pumped from subterranean sources. The dry-farmer has a choice among several sources of power for the operation of his pumping plant. In localities where winds are frequent and of sufficient strength windmills furnish cheap and effective power, especially where the lift is not very great. The gasoline engine is in a state of considerable perfection and may be used economically where the price of gasoline is reasonable. Engines using crude oil may be most desirable in the localities where oil wells have been found. As the manufacture of alcohol from the waste products of the farms becomes established, the alcohol-burning engine could become a very important one. Over nearly the whole of the dry-farm territory coal is found in large quant.i.ties, and the steam engine fed by coal is an important factor in the pumping of water for irrigation purposes. Further, in the mountainous part of the dry-farm territory water Power is very abundant. Only the smallest fraction of it has as yet been harnessed for the generation of the electric current. As electric generation increases, it should be comparatively easy for the farmer to secure sufficient electric power to run the pump. This has already become an established practice in districts where electric power is available.

During the last few years considerable work has been done to determine the feasibility of raising water for irrigation by pumping. Fortier reports that successful results have been obtained in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. He declares that a good type of windmill located in a district where the average wind movement is ten miles per hour can lift enough water twenty feet to irrigate five acres of land. Wherever the water is near the surface this should be easy of accomplishment. Vernon, Lovett, and Scott, who worked under New Mexico conditions, have reported that crops can be produced profitably by the use of water raised to the surface for irrigation. Fleming and Stoneking, who conducted very careful experiments on the subject in New Mexico, found that the cost of raising through one foot a quant.i.ty of water corresponding to a depth of one foot over one acre of land varied from a cent and an eighth to nearly twenty-nine cents, with an average of a little more than ten cents. This means that the cost of raising enough water to cover one acre to a depth of one foot through a distance of forty feet would average $4.36. This includes not only the cost of the fuel and supervision of the pump but the actual deterioration of the plant. Smith investigated the same problem under Arizona conditions and found that it cost approximately seventeen cents to raise one acre foot of water to a height of one foot. A very elaborate investigation of this nature was conducted in California by Le Conte and Tait. They studied a large number of pumping plants in actual operation under California conditions, and determined that the total cost of raising one acre foot of water one foot was, for gasoline power, four cents and upward; for electric power, seven to sixteen cents, and for steam, four cents and upward. Mead has reported observations on seventy-two windmills near Garden City, Kansas, which irrigated from one fourth to seven acres each at a cost of seventy-five cents to $6 per acre. All in all, these results justify the belief that water may be raised profitably by pumping for the purpose of irrigating crops. When the very great value of a little water on a dry-farm is considered, the figures here given do not seem at all excessive. It must be remarked again that a reservoir of some sort is practically indispensable in connection with a pumping plant if the irrigation water is to be used in the best way.

The use of small quant.i.ties of water in irrigation

Now, it is undoubtedly true that the acre cost of water on dry-farms, where pumping plants or similar devices must be used with expensive reservoirs, is much higher than when water is obtained from gravity ca.n.a.ls. It is, therefore, important that the costly water so obtained be used in the most economical manner. This is doubly important in view of the fact that the water supply obtained on dry-farms is always small and insufficient for all that the farmer would like to do. Indeed, the profit in storing and pumping water rests largely upon the economical application of water to crops. This necessitates the statement of one of the first principles of scientific irrigation practices, namely, that the yield of a crop under irrigation is not proportional to the amount of water applied in the form of irrigation water. In other words, the water stored in the soil by the natural precipitation and the water that falls during the spring and summer can either mature a small crop or bring a crop near maturity. A small amount of water added in the form of irrigation water at the right time will usually complete the work and produce a well-matured crop of large yield.

Irrigation should only be supplemented to the natural precipitation.

As more irrigation water is added, the increase in yield becomes smaller in proportion to the amount of water employed. This is clearly shown by the following table, which is taken from some of the irrigation experiments carried on at the Utah Station:--

Effect of Varying Irrigations on Crop Yields Per Acre

Depth of Water Wheat Corn Alfalfa Potatoes Sugar Beets Applied (Inches) (Bushels) (Bushels) (Pounds) (Bushels) (Tons) 5.0 40 194 25 7.5 41 65 10.0 41 80 213 26 15.0 46 78 253 27 25.0 49 77 10,056 258 35.0 55 9,142 291 26 50 60 84 13,061

The soil was a typical arid soil of great depth and had been so cultivated as to contain a large quant.i.ty of the natural precipitation. The first five inches of water added to the precipitation already stored in the soil produced forty bushels of wheat. Doubling this amount of irrigation water produced only forty-one bushels of wheat. Even with an irrigation of fifty inches, or ten times that which produced forty bushels, only sixty bushels of wheat, or an increase of one half, were produced. A similar variation may be observed in the case of the other crops. The first lesson to be drawn from this important principle of irrigation is that if the soil be so treated as to contain at planting time the largest proportion of the natural precipitation,--that is, if the ordinary methods of dry-farming be employed,--crops will be produced with a very small amount of irrigation water. Secondly, it follows that it would be a great deal better for the farmer who raises wheat, for instance, to cover ten acres of land with water to a depth of five inches than to cover one acre to a depth of fifty inches, for in the former case four hundred bushels and in the second sixty bushels of wheat would be produced. The farmer who desires to utilize in the most economical manner the small amount of water at his disposal must prepare the land according to dry-farm methods and then must spread the water at his disposal over a larger area of land. The land must be plowed in the fall if the conditions permit, and fallowing should be practiced wherever possible. If the farmer does not wish to fallow his family garden he can achieve equally good results by planting the rows twice as far apart as is ordinarily the case and by bringing the irrigation furrows near the rows of plants. Then, to make the best use of the water, he must carefully cover the irrigation furrow with dry dirt immediately after the water has been applied and keep the whole surface well stirred so that evaporation will be reduced to a minimum. The beginning of irrigation wisdom is always the storage of the natural precipitation. When that is done correctly, it is really remarkable how far a small amount of irrigation water may be made to go.

Under conditions of water scarcity it is often found profitable to carry water to the garden in cement or iron pipes so that no water may be lost by seepage or evaporation during the conveyance of the water from the reservoir to the garden. It is also often desirable to convey water to plants through pipes laid under the ground, perforated at various intervals to allow the water to escape and soak into the soil in the neighborhood of the plant roots. All such refined methods of irrigation should be carefully investigated by the who wants the largest results from his limited water supply.

Though such methods may seem c.u.mbersome and expensive at first, yet they will be found, if properly arranged, to be almost automatic in their operation and also very profitable.

Forbes has reported a most interesting experiment dealing with the economical use of a small water supply under the long season and intense water dissipating conditions of Arizona. The source of supply was a well, 90 feet deep. A 3 by 14-inch pump cylinder operated by a 12-foot geared windmill lifted the water into a 5000-gallon storage reservoir standing on a support 18 feet high.

The water was conveyed from this reservoir through black iron pipes buried 1 or 2 feet from the trees to be watered. Small holes in the pipe 332 inch in diameter allowed the water to escape at desirable intervals. This irrigation plant was under expert observation for considerable time, and it was found to furnish sufficient water for domestic use for one household, and irrigated in addition 61 olive trees, 2 cottonwoods, 8 pepper trees, 1 date palm, 19 pomegranates, 4 grapevines, 1 fig tree, 9 eucalyptus trees, 1 ash, and 13 miscellancous, making a total of 87 useful trees, mainly fruit-bearing, and 32 vines and bushes. (See Fig. 95.) If such a result can be obtained with a windmill and with water ninety feet below the surface under the arid conditions of Arizona, there should be little difficulty in securing sufficient water over the larger portions of the dry-farm territory to make possible beautiful homesteads.

The dry-farmer should carefully avoid the temptation to decry irrigation practices. Irrigation and dry-farming of necessity must go hand in hand in the development of the great arid regions of the world. Neither can well stand alone in the building of great commonwealths on the deserts of the earth.

CHAPTER XVII

THE HISTORY OF DRY-FARMING

The great nations of antiquity lived and prospered in arid and semiarid countries. In the more or less rainless regions of China, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, Mexico, and Peru, the greatest cities and the mightiest peoples flourished in ancient days. Of the great civilizations of history only that of Europe has rooted in a humid climate. As Hilgard has suggested, history teaches that a high civilization goes hand in hand with a soil that thirsts for water.

To-day, current events point to the arid and semiarid regions as the chief dependence of our modern civilization.

In view of these facts it may be inferred that dry-farming is an ancient practice. It is improbable that intelligent men and women could live in Mesopotamia, for example, for thousands of years without discovering methods whereby the fertile soils could be made to produce crops in a small degree at least without irrigation.

True, the low development of implements for soil culture makes it fairly certain that dry-farming in those days was practiced only with infinite labor and patience; and that the great ancient nations found it much easier to construct great irrigation systems which would make crops certain with a minimum of soil tillage, than so thoroughly to till the soil with imperfect implements as to produce certain yields without irrigation. Thus is explained the fact that the historians of antiquity speak at length of the wonderful irrigation systems, but refer to other forms of agriculture in a most casual manner. While the absence of agricultural machinery makes it very doubtful whether dry-farming was practiced extensively in olden days, yet there can be little doubt of the high antiquity of the practice.

Kearney quotes Tunis as an example of the possible extent of dry-farming in early historical days. Tunis is under an average rainfall of about nine inches, and there are no evidences of irrigation having been practiced there, yet at El Djem are the ruins of an amphitheater large enough to accommodate sixty thousand persons, and in an area of one hundred square miles there were fifteen towns and forty-five villages. The country, therefore, must have been densely populated. In the seventh century, according to the Roman records, there were two million five hundred thousand acres of olive trees growing in Tunis and cultivated without irrigation. That these stupendous groves yielded well is indicated by the statement that, under the Caesar's Tunis was taxed three hundred thousand gallons of olive oil annually. The production of oil was so great that from one town it was piped to the nearest s.h.i.+pping port. This historical fact is borne out by the present revival of olive culture in Tunis, mentioned in Chapter XII.

Moreover, many of the primitive peoples of to-day, the Chinese, Hindus, Mexicans, and the American Indians, are cultivating large areas of land by dry-farm methods, often highly perfected, which have been developed generations ago, and have been handed down to the present day. Martin relates that the Tarahumari Indians of northern Chihuahua, who are among the most thriving aboriginal tribes of northern Mexico, till the soil by dry-farm methods and succeed in raising annually large quant.i.ties of corn and other crops. A crop failure among them is very uncommon. The early American explorers, especially the Catholic fathers, found occasional tribes in various parts of America cultivating the soil successfully without irrigation. All this points to the high antiquity of agriculture without irrigation in arid and semiarid countries.

Modern dry-farming in the United States

The honor of having originated modern dry-farming belongs to the people of Utah. On July 24th, 1847, Brigham Young with his band of pioneers entered Great Salt Lake Valley, and on that day ground was plowed, potatoes planted, and a tiny stream of water led from City Creek to cover this first farm. The early endeavors of the Utah pioneers were devoted almost wholly to the construction of irrigation systems. The parched desert ground appeared so different from the moist soils of Illinois and Iowa, which the pioneers had cultivated, as to make it seem impossible to produce crops without irrigation. Still, as time wore on, inquiring minds considered the possibility of growing crops without irrigation; and occasionally when a farmer was deprived of his supply of irrigation water through the breaking of a ca.n.a.l or reservoir it was noticed by the community that in spite of the intense heat the plants grew and produced small yields.

Gradually the conviction grew upon the Utah pioneers that farming without irrigation was not an impossibility; but the small population were kept so busy with their small irrigated farms that no serious attempts at dry-farming were made during the first seven or eight years. The publications of those days indicate that dry-farming must have been practiced occasionally as early as 1854 or 1855.

About 1863 the first dry-farm experiment of any consequence occurred in Utah. A number of emigrants of Scandinavian descent had settled in what is now known as Bear River City, and had turned upon their farms the alkali water of Malad Creek, and naturally the crops failed. In desperation the starving settlers plowed up the sagebrush land, planted grain, and awaited results. To their surprise, fair yields of grain were obtained, and since that day dry-farming has been an established practice in that portion of the Great Salt Lake Valley. A year or two later, Christopher Layton, a pioneer who helped to build both Utah and Arizona, plowed up land on the famous Sand Ridge between Salt Lake City and Ogden and demonstrated that dry-farm wheat could be grown successfully on the deep sandy soil which the pioneers had held to be worthless for agricultural purposes. Since that day the Sand Ridge has been famous as a dry-farm district, and Major J. W. Powell, who saw the ripened fields of grain in the hot dry sand, was moved upon to make special mention of them in his volume on the "Arid Lands of Utah," published in 1879.

About this time, perhaps a year or two later, Joshua Salisbury and George L. Farrell began dry-farm experiments in the famous Cache Valley, one hundred miles north of Salt Lake City. After some years of experimentation, with numerous failures these and other pioneers established the practice of dry-farming in Cache Valley, which at present is one of the most famous dry-farm sections in the United States. In Tooele County, Just south of Salt Lake City, dry-farming was practiced in 1877--how much earlier is not known. In the northern Utah counties dry-farming a.s.sumed proportions of consequence only in the later '70's and early '80's. During the '80's it became a thoroughly established and extensive business practice in the northern part of the state.

California, which was settled soon after Utah, began dry-farm experiments a little later than Utah. The available information indicates that the first farming without irrigation in California began in the districts of somewhat high precipitation. As the population increased, the practice was pushed away from the mountains towards the regions of more limited rainfall. According to Hilgard, successful dry-farming on an extensive scale has been practiced in California since about 1868. Olin reports that moisture-saving methods were used on the Californian farms as early as 1861. Certainly, California was a close second in originating dry-farming.

The Columbia Basin was settled by Mareus Whitman near Walla Walla in 1836, but farming did not gain much headway until the railroad pushed through the great Northwest about 1880. Those familiar with the history of the state of Was.h.i.+ngton declare that dry-farming was in successful operation in isolated districts in the late '70's. By 1890 it was a well-established practice, but received a serious setback by the financial panic of 1892-1893. Really successful and extensive dry-farming in the Columbia Basin began about 1897. The practice of summer fallow had begun a year or two before. It is interesting to note that both in California and Was.h.i.+ngton there are districts in which dry-farming has been practiced successfully under a precipitation of about ten inches whereas in Utah the limit has been more nearly twelve inches.

In the Great Plains area the history of dry-farming Is hopelessly lost in the greater history of the development of the eastern and more humid parts of that section of the country. The great influx of settlers on the western slope of the Great Plains area occurred in the early '80's and overflowed into eastern Colorado and Wyoming a few years later. The settlers of this region brought with them the methods of humid agriculture and because of the relatively high precipitation were not forced into the careful methods of moisture conservation that had been forced upon Utah, California, and the Columbia Basin. Consequently, more failures in dry-farming are reported from those early days in the Great Plains area than from the drier sections of the far West Dry-farming was practiced very successfully in the Great Plains area during the later '80's.

According to Payne, the crops of 1889 were very good; in 1890, less so; in 1891, better; in 1892 such immense crops were raised that the settlers spoke of the section as G.o.d's country; in 1893, there was a partial failure, and in 1894 the famous complete failure, which was followed in 1895 by a partial failure. Since that time fair crops have been produced annually. The dry years of 1893-1895 drove most of the discouraged settlers back to humid sections and delayed, by many years, the settlement and development of the western side of the Great Plains area. That these failures and discouragements were due almost entirely to improper methods of soil culture is very evident to the present day student of dry-farming. In fact, from the very heart of the section which was abandoned in 1893-1895 come reliable records, dating back to 1886, which show successful crop production every year. The famous Indian Head experimental farm of Saskatchewan, at the north end of the Great Plains area, has an unbroken record of good crop yields from 1888, and the early '90's were quite as dry there as farther south. However, in spite of the vicissitudes of the section, dry-farming has taken a firm hold upon the Great Plains area and is now a well-established practice.

The curious thing about the development of dry-farming in Utah, California, Was.h.i.+ngton, and the Great Plains is that these four sections appear to have originated dry-farming independently of each other. True, there was considerable communication from 1849 onward between Utah and California, and there is a possibility that some of the many Utah settlers who located in California brought with them accounts of the methods of dry-farming as practiced in Utah. This, however, cannot be authenticated. It is very unlikely that the farmers of Was.h.i.+ngton learned dry-farming from their California or Utah neighbors, for until 1880 communication between Was.h.i.+ngton and the colonies in California and Utah was very difficult, though, of course, there was always the possibility of accounts of agricultural methods being carried from place to place by the moving emigrants.

It is fairly certain that the Great Plains area did not draw upon the far West for dry-farm methods. The climatic conditions are considerably different and the Great Plains people always considered themselves as living in a very humid country as compared with the states of the far West. It may be concluded, therefore, that there were four independent pioneers in dry-farming in United States.

Moreover, hundreds, probably thousands, of individual farmers over the semiarid region have practiced dry-farming thirty to fifty years with methods by themselves.

Although these different dry-farm sections were developed independently, yet the methods which they have finally adopted are practically identical and include deep plowing, unless the subsoil is very lifeless; fall plowing; the planting of fall grain wherever fall plowing is possible; and clean summer fallowing. About 1895 the word began to pa.s.s from mouth to mouth that probably nearly all the lands in the great arid and semiarid sections of the United States could be made to produce profitable crops without irrigation. At first it was merely a whisper; then it was talked aloud, and before long became the great topic of conversation among the thousands who love the West and wish for its development. Soon it became a National subject of discussion. Immediately after the close of the nineteenth century the new awakening had been accomplished and dry-farming was moving onward to conquer the waste places of the earth.

H. W. Campbell

The history of the new awakening in dry-farming cannot well be written without a brief account of the work of H. W. Campbell who, in the public mind, has become intimately identified with the dry-farm movement. H. W. Campbell came from Vermont to northern South Dakota in 1879, where in 1882 he harvested a banner crop,--twelve thousand bushels of wheat from three hundred acres. In 1883, on the same farm he failed completely. This experience led him to a study of the conditions under which wheat and other crops may be produced in the Great Plains area. A natural love for investigation and a dogged persistence have led him to give his life to a study of the agricultural problems of the Great Plains area. He admits that his direct inspiration came from the work of Jethro Tull, who labored two hundred years ago, and his disciples. He conceived early the idea that if the soil were packed near the bottom of the plow furrow, the moisture would be retained better and greater crop certainty would result. For this purpose the first subsurface packer was invented in 1885. Later, about 1895, when his ideas had crystallized into theories, he appeared as the publisher of Campbell's "Soil Culture and Farm Journal." One page of each issue was devoted to a succinct statement of the "Campbell Method."

It was in 1898 that the doctrine of summer tillage was begun to be investigated by him.

In view of the crop failures of the early '90's and the gradual dry-farm awakening of the later '90's, Campbell's work was received with much interest. He soon became identified with the efforts of the railroads to maintain demonstration farms for the benefit of intending settlers. While Campbell has long been in the service of the railroads of the semiarid region, yet it should be said in all fairness that the railroads and Mr. Campbell have had for their primary object the determination of methods whereby the farmers could be made sure of successful crops.

Mr. Campbell's doctrines of soil culture, based on his acc.u.mulated experience, are presented in Campbell's "Soil Culture Manual," the first edition of which appeared about 1904 and the latest edition, considerably extended, was published in 1907. The 1907 manual is the latest official word by Mr. Campbell on the principles and methods of the "Campbell system." The essential features of the system may be summarized as follows: The storage of water in the soil is imperative for the production of crops in dry years. This may be accomplished by proper tillage. Disk the land immediately after harvest; follow as soon as possible with the plow; follow the plow with the subsurface packer; and follow the packer with the smoothing harrow. Disk the land again as early as possible in the spring and stir the soil deeply and carefully after every rain. Sow thinly in the fall with a drill. If the grain is too thick in the spring, harrow it out. To make sure of a crop, the land should be "summer tilled," which means that clean summer fallow should be practiced every other year, or as often as may be necessary.

These methods, with the exception of the subsurface packing, are sound and in harmony with the experience of the great dry-farm sections and with the principles that are being developed by scientific investigation. The "Campbell system" as it stands to-day is not the system first advocated by him. For instance, in the beginning of his work he advocated sowing grain in April and in rows so far apart that spring tooth harrows could be used for cultivating between the rows. This method, though successful in conserving moisture, is too expensive and is therefore superseded by the present methods. Moreover, his farm paper of 1896, containing a full statement of the "Campbell method," makes absolutely no mention of "summer tillage," which is now the very keystone of the system.

These and other facts make it evident that Mr. Campbell has very properly modified his methods to harmonize with the best experience, but also invalidate the claim that he is the author of the dry-farm system. A weakness of the "Campbell system" is the continual insistence upon the use of the subsurface packer. As has already been shown, subsurface packing is of questionable value for successful crop production, and if valuable, the results may be much more easily and successfully obtained by the use of the disk and harrow and other similar implements now on the market. Perhaps the one great weakness in the work of Campbell is that he has not explained the principles underlying his practices. His publications only hint at the reasons. H. W. Campbell, however, has done much to popularize the subject of dry-farming and to prepare the way for others. His persistence in his work of gathering facts, writing, and speaking has done much to awaken interest in dry-farming. He has been as "a voice in the wilderness" who has done much to make possible the later and more systematic study of dry-farming. High honor should be shown him for his faith in the semiarid region, for his keen observation, and his persistence in the face of difficulties. He is justly ent.i.tled to be ranked as one of the great workers in behalf of the reclamation, without irrigation, of the rainless sections of the world.

The experiment stations

The brave pioneers who fought the relentless dryness of the Great American Desert from the memorable entrance of the Mormon pioneers into the valley of the Great Salt Lake in 1847 were not the only ones engaged in preparing the way for the present day of great agricultural endeavor. Other, though perhaps more indirect, forces were also at work for the future development of the semiarid section. The Morrill Bill of 1862, making it possible for agricultural colleges to be created in the various states and territories, indicated the beginning of a public feeling that modern methods should be applied to the work of the farm. The pa.s.sage in 1887 of the Hatch Act, creating agricultural experiment stations in all of the states and territories, finally initiated a new agricultural era in the United States. With the pa.s.sage of this bill, stations for the application of modern science to crop production were for the first time authorized in the regions of limited rainfall, with the exception of the station connected with the University of California, where Hilgard from 1872 had been laboring in the face of great difficulties upon the agricultural problems of the state of California. During the first few years of their existence, the stations were busy finding men and problems.

The problems nearest at hand were those that had been attacked by the older stations founded under an abundant rainfall and which could not be of vital interest to arid countries. The western stations soon began to attack their more immediate problems, and it was not long before the question of producing crops without irrigation on the great unirrigated stretches of the West was discussed among the station staffs and plans were projected for a study of the methods of conquering the desert.

The Colorado Station was the first to declare its good intentions in the matter of dry-farming, by inaugurating definite experiments. By the action of the State Legislature of 1893, during the time of the great drouth, a substation was established at Cheyenne Wells, near the west border of the state and within the foothills of the Great Plains area. From the summer of 1894 until 1900 experiments were conducted on this farm. The experiments were not based upon any definite theory of reclamation, and consequently the work consisted largely of the comparison of varieties, when soil treatment was the all-important problem to be investigated. True in 1898, a trial of the "Campbell method" was undertaken. By the time this Station had pa.s.sed its pioneer period and was ready to enter upon more systematic investigation, it was closed. Bulletin 59 of the Colorado Station, published in 1900 by J. E. Payne, gives a summary of observations made on the Cheyenne Wells substation during seven years. This bulletin is the first to deal primarily with the experimental work relating to dry-farming in the Great Plains area.

It does not propose or outline any system of reclamation. Several later publications of the Colorado Station deal with the problems peculiar to the Great Plains.

At the Utah Station the possible conquest of the sagebrush deserts of the Great Basin without irrigation was a topic of common conversation during the years 1894 and 1895. In 1896 plans were presented for experiments on the principles of dry-farming. Four years later these plans were carried into effect. In the summer of 1901, the author and L. A. Merrill investigated carefully the practices of the dry-farms of the state. On the basis of these observations and by the use of the established principles of the relation of water to soils and plants, a theory of dry-farming was worked out which was published in Bulletin 75 of the Utah Station in January, 1902. This is probably the first systematic presentation of the principles of dry-farming. A year later the Legislature of the state of Utah made provision for the establishment and maintenance of six experimental dry-farms to investigate in different parts of the state the possibility of dry-farming and the principles underlying the art. These stations, which are still maintained, have done much to stimulate the growth of dry-farming in Utah. The credit of first undertaking and maintaining systematic experimental work in behalf of dry-farming should be a.s.signed to the state of Utah. Since dry-farm experiments began in Utah in 1901, the subject has been a leading one in the Station and the College. A large number of men trained at the Utah Station and College have gone out as investigators of dry-farming under state and Federal direction.

The other experiment stations in the arid and semi-arid region were not slow to take up the work for their respective states. Fortier and Linfield, who had spent a number of years in Utah and had become somewhat familiar with the dry-farm practices of that state, initiated dry-farm investigations in Montana, which have been prosecuted with great vigor since that time. Vernon, under the direction of Foster, who had spent four years in Utah as Director of the Utah Station, initiated the work in New Mexico. In Wyoming the experimental study of dry-farm lands began by the private enterprise of H. B. Henderson and his a.s.sociates. Later V. T. Cooke was placed in charge of the work under state auspices, and the demonstration of the feasibility of dry-farming in Wyoming has been going on since about 1907. Idaho has also recently undertaken dry-farm investigations. Nevada, once looked upon as the only state in the Union incapable of producing crops without irrigation, is demonstrating by means of state appropriations that large areas there are suitable for dry-farming. In Arizona, small tracts in this sun-baked state are shown to be suitable for dry-farm lands. The Was.h.i.+ngton Station is investigating the problems of dry-farming peculiar to the Columbia Basin, and the staff of the Oregon Station is carrying on similar work. In Nebraska, some very important experiments dry-farming are being conducted. In North Dakota there were in 1910 twenty-one dry-farm demonstration farms. In South Dakota, Kansas, and Texas, provisions are similarly made for dry-farm investigations. In fact, up and down the Great Plains area there are stations maintained by the state or Federal government for the purpose of determining the methods under which crops can be produced without irrigation.

At the head of the Great Plains area at Saskatchewan one of the oldest dry-farm stations in America is located (since 1888). In Russia several stations are devoted very largely to the problems of dry land agriculture. To be especially mentioned for the excellence of the work done are the stations at Odessa, Cherson, and Poltava.

This last-named Station has been established since 1886.