The Ogden standard. [volume] (Ogden City, Utah) 1902-1910, 1909-03-11
WHAT CAN BE DONE BY DRY
FARMING

In his address to the Dry Farming
Congress at Chicago. O. w. Bryant
OF the department of agriculture. To-
Gated at the experimental station In
Wyoming said:
I'm certain districts of the semi
arid portion of the United States So
called dry land farming has been not
ably successful during the last few
years. This has probably been due
to the introduction Of new drought re-
sistant plants. scientific tillage OF the
soil. and rainfall above the normal,
"Of the drought-resistant plants
probably Durum wheat has been most
successful and has made the greatest
showing in the shortest length of
time. 1t withstands the dry weather
exceptionally well and has found n
suitable home west of the Goth meri-
dian. In 1906 2O,00O.OO0 bushels was
exported 10 Europe. while In 1907, the
total yield In the United States was
45 100000 bushels. This was practi.
cally all grown in the dry farming belt
and covered about three million acres
of land.
"All advocates of dry land farming
Will advise conservation of moisture
In the soil This Is, no doubt. the most
important factor entering into scien~
tific dry land farming Some teachers
show us one way to prepare the soil
for the retention of moisture, while
others discuss methods slightly diff
ferent, but they all come to the same
conclusion, viz. that blanket of fine
soil mulch must cover the ground to
prevent excessive evaporation.
by taking Miles City. Mont; Chey-
enne, Wyo.; North Platte, Neb.;
Dodge City, Kas., and Amarillo, Texas,
as representative points In the semi
arid belt, we find, by consulting the
weather bureau records. that during
the past five years the total rainfall
has been from six inches to two feet
above the normal In the dry farmed
district
Having studied the conditions un-
der which many homesteads on our
seml-arid plains were at one time
abandoned and realizing that this en-.
terprlse was again assuming broad
dimensions, this Office saw fit, about
three years ago, to establish three sta
tions in Wyoming and Colorado, where
small areas would be irrigated and a
few crops and trees grown, should the
season at any time prove too dry for
the growth OF the general farm crops,
In order TO show the value of a little
water In connection with dry farming
we, out of necessity, established ex-
tensive farms at Cheyenne and New
castle, Wyo,, and at Eads. Colo, Here
we are attempting. on quite large
scale. dry farming experiments ac-
cording to the latest scientific meth
DDS. At Cheyenne the yields In 1908
were as follows On summer fallowed
land: Potatoes, 100 bushels per acre;
barley, p bushels per acre, weighing
62 pounds per bushel. and peas, Z
bushels per acre. The hall thrashed
out about one-half of the peas and tho
potatoes were so badly beaten by 1t
that great many of them did not ma
ture. We had prospects OF raising 40
bushels per acre before the hail storm
passed over the farm On continually
cropped land We produced SO bushels
of potatoes per acre. IL IL bushels OF
beardles9 barley per acre, and 10 ton
OF sugar beets per acre. The beetS
contained about II per cent sugar, but
were rather low in purity The dry
farmed beets did not yield as well AS
the irrigated beets, but were superior
in sugar content and purity Bronze
and Slender wheat grasses did very
well, but alfalfa was not SO encour-
aging"