Arizona republican., 1908-10-12
MONDELL ON DRY FARMING
WESTERN CONGRESSMAN
States Some Personal Experiences and
Observations at the Pine Bluffs
Festival.

than l care to tell, on a farm in North
western Iowa. We did not have a pat
ented name for ii at that time. We
simply called il q drouth and as we
had not learned how to farm for dry
years we were compelled to live on
what we had left over from the year
before and our hopes for the year to
come. A few years later we had the
historic visitation of grasshoppers and
that was the driest farming ! have
ever known. l refer to that experience
for the reason that during the five
years that the "hoppers" were with us
more or less. I learned some things
about crops which were quick matur-
ing and the early seeding and forcing
Of crops that was Of considerable value
to my later experience in Wyoming.
Twenty years ago next month /
took up my permanent residence in
wyoming. in Weston county. about five
miles from where .he town of New
castle now stands. The need of grain
and vegetables which could not be Sc
cured nearer than fifty miles and then
in uncertain quantities suggested the
advisability of growing them, and the
absence OF water for irrigation COM
PEELED the experiment of growing what
we needed with the natural rainfall
and so became a Wyoming dry farm
er twenty years ago.
Mr.. dry farming at that time con-
tinued for a number of years, during
which time l gradually increased the
acreage until / farmed over a thousand
acres and raised over twenty thousand
bushels OF grain and over twenty-five
hundred bushels of potatoes, sixteen
| years ago this season.
OF course we did not call it dry
farming, neither had we heard of the
Campbell system" or the biennial sys-
TEN oc the Columbia River Uplands,
still we did very well on a thin soil
and with about fourteen inches Of rain
fall by simply doing very good farm
ing and at the right time. We would
&c even better now under the same
circumstances, Cor we have learned
many things from those who have been
thu pioneers and Dathfinders in the
science OF dry farming.
We have now up there in Crook and
Weston counties an extensive territory
in which farming is carried on and in
which reasonably good crops have
been grown by the majority Of the
farmers for the past ten or twelve
years, while those who have farmed
the best have been rewarded with phe-
uOmenal crops most % the time and
good crops al the time.
The country up there differs consid-
erably from your country. 1t is more
lilly and broken and there is a greater
variety OF soil Also in the sections
snowfall. Recently, however, the set
tlement is extending in to a region Of
open prairie more like yours.
All OF our dry farmers are not good
drv formers by any means In fact
some o. them are very poor dry farm
ers, yet they have in the main been
quite successful and those who farm
Ihc hest have been very successful
During an my service in congress
have been on the irrigation committee
and for a number OF years was chair
man, 50 I rave taken 2 lively interest
IN II L. IT pertains to irrigation la;
at the same time I have realized that,
as not to exceed ten per cent Of the
area Of tile arid states could be irrigat-
ca. any considerable development along
agricultural lines must depend quite
largely upOn the possibility of the
growing Of crops with scant rainfall.
Therefore I have studied the possibi
lities OF such development as religi-
ousIy as have studied irrigation in all
parts os The western states l have Wis
tied. !,
The result of nv investigation of the
subject has been q surprise at the ex-
tent to which the growing Of crops
with scant rainfall has been carried on
throughout the arid and semi arid re-
RiCn and the limited knoledge that one
suwch religion has had of what was
being done in al lothers. In Califor-
hit - has been necessary TO discour-
age rather than encourage dry farming
In some regions because irrigation was
possible and therefore ought to be
praciiced
In Eastern Oregon and Washington
the system of cropping the ground on
ly once in two years has been practiced
on an extensive scale and with great
success, while IN every state of the
west farming is carried on more or
less here and there without irrigation
and with q scant rainfall.
l would not presume to give prac-
llCdl DeODie SUCH DIS you are many
of you versed in the science and prac-
tice of dry farming much better than
/, lecture or extended advice on the
subject, but there are some general
propositions which have come under
my observation that may possibly be
useful to YOU. The first of these is
that the successful growing of certain
classes of crops on lands which do not
contain too great a percentage of clay
is with a limited rainfall and without
artificial irrigation has long since
ceased to be an experiment. Second,
that so-called dry farming under rea-
sonably favorable conditions and by
the use of proper methods is but a lit
tie less certain and satisfactory in its
results than ordinary farming in the
average country of heavy rainfall, and
much more satisfactory than in many
regions of heavy rainfall with poor soil
NY personal opinion is based on quite
extensive observation that the most
satisfactory results will be obtained in
most regions having less than eighteen
or twenty inches of annual precipita
ton by biennial cropping and summer
tillage | believe that in the running
of the years the farmer i'll get more |
dollars per acre per annum from his |
farm by this method than by annual /