The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-19
THE NEW SCIENCE
 OF DRY FARMING By Conserving All Moisture Ir- rIgation is Unnecessary HOW 1T IS DONE IN WEST Requires Attention of the Farmer All the Year Round, But Big Crops
 Pay HIm Well for Ills .
 Trouble.
HOW IT IS DONE IN WEST
BY FREDERIC j. HAsKIN.

BY FREDERIC j. HAsKIN.
 From the Canadian border on the north to the Rio Grande on the south, and from
 the Rocky mountains westward almost
 to the sea, lies that great strip of land known to geographers as Arid America. Twelve hundred miles long and 1s,0O0 miles wide it comprises an area equal to about one-third that of continental United States | exclusive Of Alaska. Here lie vast do- mains of public lands, 6O0Oo0,OOo acres in all. besides railroad grants and school lands. and 70000,c0u of these acres are
 known as desert land. Stretches of daz- zling white sand. overhung at times with alkali dust, and broken here and there by purple mountains, bare and wind-swept
 this so-called desert land has been con- demued for 8 century by settlers because of its inhospdtab1o aspect and It's unre- sponsiveness to the ordinary methods of farming Hopeful men have come in creaking prairie schooners out of tho east. have built little homes on the desert rim, have tried the olo methods of tilling this dry soil, have seen their wives and children grow sad-eyeo and hungry when the crops failed, and have gone croalSing back Into the east again, discouraged and disheartened. curslng the desert that lured them on with its mirage of harvest sea- sons, only to disappolnt them.
 Yet In this desert country there lies, so scientists and practical farmers tell us, the possibilities for fulfilling the old Bibli- cal prophecy that the waste places may be made glad and that the desert will blossom as a rose. It will need no miracle to prove this, and little outside influence to bring 1t about. It will mean only a scientific use of the materials nature al- ready has at hand. In ordinary agricul- tural methods, such as were practtced by our fathers, and their fathers before them, 1t was demanded that nature be prodigal in her gifts of rain and moisture and when nature was kind personal effort decreased and the crops were satisfactory. Because of this old dependence on rain those who went to the west and tried farming In the land of little rain" soon grew discouraged, for the average annual precipitation in the foot hills of the Rockies Is only 14.99 inches. Yet in the Night of newer experiments 1t has been found that crops can be raised on an average rainfall of ten inches, making this precipitation really nearly three inches over what Is needed.
 This new method by which the desert land is to be redeemed is known as dry farming and it's principle is the very simple one of conserving every particle of moisture that falls during the year, not in large reservoirs or behind expensive concrete dams, but in the soil itself. A year before crop is to be planted the ToJH Hw~ I4w l.. wx1- T --.akL Ut machinery. Strong disks blows not only pulverize the subsoil but pack it Into a firm bed through which the conserved water may not sink, and through which the excessive salts that usually lie four or five feet below the surface may not rise by evaporation to burn and blight vegetation.
 On this subsotl the surface soil is pull verized to such a f1neness by special machinery that 1t seems 1t must have been done by the fingers This makes a mulch through which radn and melted snow may percolate to rest on the packed subsoil beneath, but through which no moisture can dse It demonstrates the physical law of capillary attraction, for moisture most easily rises through moist channels, just as oil rises more quickly in lamp wick that has been saturated in the oil than it does in a dry wick. Lee tuTers fin demonstrating their theory have represented the damp subsoil with 8 lump of loaf sugar sprinlSled over with powdered sugar. When the lump is wet the powder remains dry.
 The pioneer dry farmer of America, and of the world for that matter, was II. w. Campbell of Lincoln. Neb. Over twen- ty years ago he evolved this theory, and having the courage of his convictions, put 1t into practice. From the James to the Arkansas river he has tried 1t on all the former waste places and has made good. Others have followed. In the wake of his diciples the Spanish bayonet, the yucca, greasewood and sage brush are disappearing and wheat. corn, alfalfa, barley, grasses, fruits and vegetables are springtng up in most satisfactory and lavish fashion. The secret of the suc- cess lies in the fact that the dry farmer must never stop work. In the older fields of the east and the south there are periods of incidence that follow the laying by time" or the harvest, and the farmer may turn his thoughts to barbe- cues, fishing excursions or simply go lie out under the trees and follow Riley's plan of seeing "jes' how lazy he kin be-"
 Not so with that sturdy man who goes to conquer the lands of the west. Even as eternal vigilance Is the acknowledged price of peace, so is tireless industry the price of his prosperity. The minute few drops of rain fall he Is out in his prairie field with disk harrow to stir the soil and powder 1t so fine the moisture may not rise again. He stirs 1t this way for year before he plants his seeds He stirs 1t while the seeds are sprouting until he is in danger of injurng the ger minating plant, and ceases only when the plants are large enough to make a pro- tecting shade for the soil. The minute the crop is harvested he does not sit idle and think of his profits on that crop. Instead he follows the harvester that same day with his subsoil blows and has his land all ready for the next planting, letting 1t lie fallow until then.
 Modern invention has come to the aid of the dry farmer. Giant machines min imze time and labor for him. Across the unbroken, virgin soil of the prairie thir- ty-two-horse power engine passes draw ing in its wake an aggregation of agricul- tural machinery that includes twelve fourteen-inch blows. two iron rollers, two clod crushers, two seed drills and other necessary things It leaves behind 1t a great stretch of brown pulverized soil in which the seeds lie hidden for the com