A crop failure caused by the alkaline irrigation water from the Malad Creek drove the settlers to clear sage brush from another piece of land and plant grain that fall without irrigation, hoping for plenty of moisture-laden snow that winter. To their relief, the snow came, and the experiment produced a fair crop the following year. By the middle of the twentieth century, almost half of the total cropland in Utah was comprised of dry farms. And in Idaho during the boom in dry farming during World War I, it was said that American Falls shipped more grain than any other station on the Union Pacific Railroad. But dry farming requires a lot of land.
Yields are lower than on irrigated land and so a decent profit requires more area on which to grow.
The system also requires half the land to lie fallow while storing up water for the next year's crop. And it demanded a high level of mechanization and a fair amount of workers, especially during the late nineteenth century and on into the first few decades of the twentieth. Early on, the big dry farms took advantage of mechanized harvesters. These harvesters were big, and they were heavy. Eighteen mules were required to pull an early McCormick combine in the late 1880s, and threshing machines were at first powered by teams of 12 horses, walking in a circle, harnessed in pairs.