The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1909-04-01
RECLAMATION
tied by Prof. W. W.. Mclaughlin, Logan, Utah.

poses only, we may have left twenty
per cent of the whole section reclaim
able by dry farming.
The arid and the semi-arid West for
forty years or more has been largely
a sheep and cattle pasture and it Is
conservatively estimated that it re-
quires from twenty to one hundred
acres to support one animal, the av-
erage being about t~hirty-ive.
1t will be readily seen, therefore,
that if after all the available water
has been used for irrigation, there is
still an agency by which other millions
of acres may be reclaimed, then cosy
homes will replace the sheep wagon
and school children will romp where
only lambs flocked before.
What, then, is dry farming?
In plain words, it is farming sue
cessfully with the natural precipita-
ton, which must be so conserved and
used as to obtain results. The world
has plodded along for several thou
sand years, and yet it has occurred
to but few people, until within a
decade, that it is possible to store
up moisture as it falls and use it when
desired.
When rains come and the snow
melts upon the native sod in the arid
and semi-arid West, the moisture is
either quickly evaporated from the
surface or passes into the ground,
from which it is almost as quickly
drawn by the same process of evap-
grafton. When the land is plowed
and permitted to lie without subse-
uuent tillage, the moisture, whether
from rain or melting SHOWS, soaks in
to the ground, possibly to the depth
of the furrow, from which it is again
withdrawn by evaporation. lntu-
enced by the heat of the sun and the
ariulty of the atmosphere, the sur
face bakes and a crust is formed.
The untutored and uninitiated, as
it we're, in the dry farming cult,
would no doubt, assume that the
crust so formed would act as a pro-
lection against the drawing" infiu-
ence of the air and sunshine, and
would, therefore, prevent evapora-
ton. The reverse is true, and herein
is the key that unlocks the secrets
of dry farming. The crust so formed
is cellular. 1t is full of little holes,
through which practically all of the
moisture beneath passes out into the
air.
In the arid and semi-arid West, par
ticularly in the rarer atmospheres OF
the higher ATTITUDES, the evaporation
takes place so rapidly that the resi-
dents of those regions almost invari-
ably underestimate the annual rain
fall. The average altitude of the arid
and semi-arid region is about n
mile above sea level.
Conservation of Moisture.
Since dry farming has been reduced
to a science it will not be amiss to use
scientific terms where they elucidate
rather than obscure the subject. The
process of evaporation through the
cellular crust above referred to is the
result of a force known as capillarity.
A familiar and effective example OF
capillary attraction is that of holding
the edge of a lump of sugar in water
and watching the moisture move
steadily toward the top. Or a better
example still, in which capillarity and
evaporation are both illustrated, is
found in the lamp, the flame OF which
consumes the oil as fast as it rises in
the wick, through capillarity, just as
the warm dry air consumes all the
moisture in the ground by means OF
the cellular "earth-wick."
It must be evident then that If pro-
vision is made by which the precipita-
ton, which readily passes into the
soil, is prevented from passing out by
capillary attraction and evaporation,
We are in a position to use this mois-
ture and produce a variety of crops, 1t