The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-10-24
DRY FARMING A
GRAND SUCCESS
Western TiIIers of the Soil VIII
Bear Testimony at Billings
This Week.

Lincoln, Oct. 23.-Western railroad,
land, banking and business interests
are planning to get together and to
make effective resistance to the doc
trine which is being preached to farm
ers IN the middle and eastern states
that there is nothing to the dry farm
ing movement. Eastern dispatches tell
of systematic plan of discrediting
what the western farmers have done,
and wholesale Misrepresentation of &C
tual conditions in the dry country. The
people of the west viii insist upon fair
play for their section.
At the Billings Dry Farming congress,
to be held next week, there viii be men
from twenty states of the west who
will give testimony as to the success OF
modern methods of scientific soil cul-
ture in Transforming the deserts into
farms. They will show that the sue
cess has not come because of any
change of climate or different condi-
tons of rainfall and winds, as claimed
by some investigators, nor have they
been dependent upon the Importation
of new drouth resisting plants. The
success has come through better I'M
derstanding Of the principles of soil til
lage with a view to securing greater
AS the result Of this work thousands
of acres have been made to yield good
good crops where 1t was supposed no
crops could be grown. In the central
part Of Nebraska splendid results have
been secured On q farm in part main
tanned by the Burlington system, where
experiments conducted for six years
have shown wonderful results. This
farm is under direction of H. w. Camp
bell, the father of dry farming, who re-
sides here. Mr.. Campbell has just re-
turned from the Panhandle of Texas,
where he directs work on two big
farms, and in a region Of very low rain
fall he has magnificent crops now
growing. He has also just returned
from North Dakota, where he inspected
crops on a large farm where soil cul-
ture methods are being tried. He ope-
rates farm near Medicine Hat, under
authority of the Alberta government,
and good results are reported there. All
over the dry farming area the princi-
pies which have been pOpularized by
Mr.. Campbell and otheYs are declared to
be making good
1t is learned that in Iowa and other
states advantage is being taken of re-
cent utterances by Secretary Wilson
and others, who are supposed to have
expert knowledge on all farming. Viii
son is quoted as saying that the system
of dry farming is wrong in principle
and destructive to the soil. and that
the right way to solve the problem of
farming the dry lands is to introduce
drouth-resisting plants. Wilson IS
quoted as declaring that the methods OF
tillage which have become common in
the dry regions will ruin the soil and
make growing of crops impossible.
Real estate owners in other states
where dry farming is not followed are
making use of these statements and the
official reports to injure the reputation
Of the western states as farming places.
They are pointing to these reports and
telling the farmers that there can be
no general farming in the dry countries.
At the coming Dry Farming congress a
good many Of the western farmers will
insist that this Misrepresentation of The
western conditions shall cease and that
the western farmers be given full credit
for their accomplishments.
A vast educational work has been
carried on the past twenty-five years
by which the western farmers have
been taught TO give attention to meth
DDS of tillage with a view to increasing
fertility by saving the moisture and
keeping the ground packed Reports
of from fifty to sixty-five bushels OF
wheat and other crops in proportion
are common where the best methods
are followed. But the farmers. believe
that only a beginning has rbeen made
and they resent the disposition on the
part Of the agricultural department ex-
perts to belittle their work.