Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1909-03-04
PROGRESS OF DRY
FARMING METHODS
Any Land That Will Grow a Crop of Sage
Brush Will Grow Crop of Wheat
Assert Authorities.

ground IN the west. An actuallty TAR
greater than the widest dreams of
pioneer forefathers was. in its quiet
way. looming up in the terms ef
brush fires ablaze and uprooting har-
rows. Across another rise in the
ground there burst upon the view q
great sea of yellow grain, heading
out in the warm July sun, whereas
for all the miles over which we had
come from the railroad there had only
been the desert grays and the dust
sage brush.
Any land that will grow q crop
of sagberush will grow crop of
wheat" explained DR.. Widtsoe as
he talked of what was going on. At
that time he was unattached and was
working alone on favorite subject
developed from his college studies.
Now he is president of the States
agricultural college, and all of the
land over which we had passed in
getting to his farm is plowed and
growing crops of wheat. At that
time the state was Offering it. as
state grant land at $l.50 per acre.
with no takers. Now the owners are
refusing $50, wi tn many offers. AS
we rode past section house on the
railroad, DIR. Widtsoe pointed out the
only land in the arid belt Of that par
ticular valley that had ever come into
| private ownership. 1t was the land
on which the railroad s~itchman had
built his home. and he had Iapsed his
title after making his first payment Of
25 cents per acre to the sAte.
All the science there is to arid farm-
ing is SO simple that one who won
ders how it could have remain un-
known so long. DR.. Widtsoe called
it to my attention in the fact that
alongside the road, where wagons
sometimes stirred the surface soil in
turning out to avoid mudholes in bad
weather the desert weeds were greener
than farther out where the ground
was never stirred. Among the grow
ing wheat he poin Jed it out again by
showing sample of ground that had
gone upprepared, taken eight inches
below the surface. 1t was SO dry
and dusty that it could be blown from
the hand with the breath. Ten feet
! away another sample, taken within
! the zone of tillage at the same
depth, was SO damp that it could be
} rolled into an adhesive putty ball.
| All that we have done, was Dr.
Widtsoe's explanation, ''has been to
: open the land with our plows in the
fall to receive the moisture, and then
: to seal it over with our harrows. SO
that the capillary ducts, by which
f the water works its way to the sur
) face, have been broken and the land
covered by separate stirred surface
coating that acts as would blanket.
, Wherever there is over twelve inches
T of rainfall year it will produce
crop if properly conserved. Almost
all our desert has more than this
amoutn of rain.
Dry farming crops now are many
4 in number. and range from cereals,
5 that are we'll established, to fruits,
! melohs, corn and potatoes, where the
status of the crops may still be said
to be experimental.
In 1905 six state experiment farms
t were established in Utah to demon
slrae what crops can be grown with
out irrigation. They have already
announced three different varieties of
wheat for seeding, one to be used for
each successive year.
Papers read before the second ses-
sion of the Trans-M issouri Dry Farm
ing Congress show that this method
of soil culture has >foothold IN
Idaho. Montana, Colorado, Wyoming.
New Mexico, Arizona, eastern Oregon
and throughout the arid area of the
Great Plains. 1t NAV restrict the
use of irrigation to the more valuable
crops, and develop dependence upon
the dry desert land for the harder
: crops that can be grown there effi-
u ciently