Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1905-08-15
ABOUT DRY FARMING.
Production of Big Crops With
Little Rain.

R. w. Jones, of this city, has
handed US a clipping from the
Little Falls Herald, of Morrison
county, Mimi, wherein is given
a system of dry farming by one
H. w. Campbell. 1t is believed
it will prove an interesting article
to many of our farmers. The
article follows:
Anyone who has doubts of the
practicabllity of the Campbell
system should come here before
harvest and compare the crops on
the Pomeroy farm with those
upon the farms that surround it,
for the yield Of wheat, oats, corn,
potatoes and everything else that
is growing will be four or five
times as great as will be harvest
cd on the other side of the fence.
Mr.. Campbell has been work
ing in North Dakota, South Da-
kota, Nebraska and Kansas for
twenty years or more, irving to
induce farmers to adopt his plan
OF ''soil culture as he calls it,
and every ywhere he has been from
the James River in the north to
the Arkansas, he has been equal
ly successful in producing with
out irrigation the same results
that are usually expected with
irrigation with comparatively
little more expense, but good
deal more care aud labor. The
whole thing is simply the exer-
else of care and patience, and
any man of ordinary intelligence
can work it as we'll as a college
professor could.
Mr.. Carnpbell's principles, as
he explains them to me are:
Catch the rainfall and store
it where the roots of the plant
can reach it.
Keep the soil always fine
and loose.
3 Have a firm, solid founda-
ton under the sofia bottom to
hold the water.
"What will this accomplish?''
l asked.
1.-THE careful, regular appli-
cation of these principles in
farming will produce at least
three times the results of ordinary
farming, and often four or Eve
times the results" said Mr.,
Campbell.
''What is that additional ex
pense?'
sIn Iowa or eastern Kansa
not more than IS per cent more
labor is necessary than is usually
expended upon crop by gooe
farmer. On the prairies, as
rule, farming is cheap and slip
shod and twice the labor is neces
sary. But this is offset to Ger
tain extent by a saving of two
thirds Of the seed. An ordinar,
farmer sows forty quarts of whea
to the acre and gets from nothin|
to twenty bushels, thirteel
bushels to the acre Icing th
average crop of the state, an
fifteen bushels the highest stat
average that has been reached i
Kansas for ten years. Under m
system any painstaking farme
by sowing twelve quarts of whea
to the acre and cu1tivating hi
soil carefully will harvest any
where from forty to ffty-si
bushels without fail.
GLOW do you do it?'
s'By storing the rainfall in II
soil," answered Mr.. Campbell
"by keeping the surface of th
ground always loose, which stol
evaporation. It is impossible f
moisture to rise to the surfa,
through loose soil, and that leav
the ground in the best conditie
to receive the next rainfall. Th-
you can make fourteen inches
rain go as far as twenty-h'
inches in raising all kinds
crops or plants or trees. We
not lose any of the rain-we ha
the full benefit of it. We ke
it stored where the roots of t
plants can reach it when th
need it"
How do you accomplish this
''By stirring UP the soil with
revolving disk, and then goil
over it again and filing up t
furrow. We call this sdout
disking.' It pulverizes the S