Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1909-11-25
BETTER THAN RAIN.

or miracle.
Soil, sunshine and water are the
three elements most essential to
plant growth. The different results
in different localities depend upon
the quality, quantity and proportions
of these three elements and their in
teligent handling by the farmer.
Soil supplies the necessary chem
ical elements for plant life, sunshine
supplies the mysterious power by
which these elements arc brought to
place in the plant, and water is the
vehicle which dissolves the chemicals
and conveys them to the organs Of
the plant. The irrigation farmer by
controlling his water supply, is mas
ter of the three elements under con-
sideration. He can control them to
as certain results as can the master
of factory or a machine shopman
his materials into a finished product
In other words, the irrigation farmer
is a manufacturer of farm products.
In the rain belt every rain which
falls dissolves and carries away with
it's excess run-off water the chemical
elements in the soil so necessary to
plant life. This process has been
carried on during untold centuries
and viii continue so long as the rain
falls in excess of the ability of the
surface to absorb it. In a desert
country no such teaching of the soil
can take place. The soil of the des-
ert retains all Of its original chemical
elements necessary to plant life
They have not been washed away or
used up by useless vegetation. This
fact readily accounts for the differ
ence in the strength of soils in ir-
rigation and rain belt farms An
other condition which frequently in
jures the crop of the rain belt farm
err. and which the irrigation farmer
does not have to meet, is the danger
to growing crop from a hard rain
coming just at the time the plant is
in the critical stage of blossom, so as
to wash off the pollen and blast the
seed pots to a certain extent.
The very conditions which are nee
cessary to bring rain to the rain belt
farmer Of necessity shut off his
sunshine. In Idaho the number of
days during the growing
season is perhaps greater than in any
other farming community on earth.
Its high latitude brings some sixteen
hours of sunshine each day during
the height Of the growing season, and
a cloudy day is a rare occurrence at
that time of the year The peculiar
location of Southern Idaho in rela-
ton to the mountains and the warm
Of the Pacific give her an
added advantage in the matter of
warm atmosphere to her long days
If sunshine.
The key to the great advantage of
farming over rain belt
lies in the power to regulate
he quantity of water applied and
he application of it to a growing
,rop at the right time The rain belt
armer is at the mercy Of the chance
ain for the application of water to
lis crops. He is often led to wonder
Why he sometimes raises a bumper
rop and at others makes nearly
AZURE when conditions seemed so
learly alike.
All plants are greedy feeders Give
crop Of oats all the water it will
Use in its early stages of growth
md it fairly runs riot in its wealth
# straw. Il grows entirely unmind-
III of self-perpetation by raising a
eed head. Give it all the soil. sun
hine and water it can use and it
viii produce but little straw. The
irrigation farmer permits his oat
rop to expend its energies in pro-
lucing straw, to a certain extent; he
hen shuts off the supply Of water and
he plants instinct warns it to begin
o throw out seed head. When the
lead is fairly started the irrigation
armer then feeds the plant again
nd stimulates the energies Of the
liant in that direction to its utmost
apacity. Suppose that just at the
ritical period in the life of the crop
vben the irrigation farmer shuts OF
he water supply to force the seed
o form, the rain belt farmer gets an
ld-fashioned gully washing rain?
lie reaps a heavy crop of straw but
light crop of grain, and wonders
Thy.
The irrigation farmer knows why.
he same principle applies to all
Their crops the same as oats. This
) the element in the great ad-
antage in irrigation over the other
fvIo Of fnrrnfun "a .