Judith Gap journal. [volume] (Judith Gap, Mont.) 1908-19??, 1909-03-12
THE SIMPLE STORY OF
SUCCESSFUL DRY FARMING

West of the Missouri river one
hears great deal about what is
called dry farming" 1t is new
phrase in this country, and relates to
most important matter. There are
more acres in the United States which
are dronyltv. year by year, than fav-
Ored with sufficient rain. Every
season is a drought when one gets in
to the short-grass country; but they
are farming there more and more and
with better success year by year.
Their methods are to Il large extent
new, and are important to farmers in
the east as well as in the west: for
all farms are subject to occasional
drought, at which times "dry farm
ing is as useful in Ohio or Illinois
as in Colorado.
Every farmer knows, of course,
that by frequent shallow cultivation
he can cover the earth with dust
blanket. and keep it from drying ont.
But to know it and to practice it are
very different things, and to practice
it scientifically is still another matter.
In North Dakota. Montana, Colo
RADIO, South DakOta-and on down to
MeNico-many have learned to prac-
tice it titically.
The story OF the popularization Of
"dry farming" is Il fascinating one.
In the early eighties the semi-arid
plains on the hither side of the
! Rockies were ''homest ea,led. 'tim-
ber-claimed, and settled upon, Il
good deal as they have been in the
past few years. Allured by the fruit
fulness OF a few wet seasons and
charmed by the fertility and tracta-
hility of the soil, the people poured
III from the Wetter east until hun
dreds of thousands had found homes
and tiattered themselves that they
had founded them.
Then came the droughts and hot
winds and crop failures and mortgage
foreclosures. and the depopulation of
whole counties by the fleeing of the
farmers who had tried to grow crops
with few inches less OF rainfall than
they were used to, and failed. 1t was
Il disastrous time. The loan COM
panies which were carrying millions
OF dollars in mortgages on these
lands went into bankruptcy, and
helped to make the panic of 1893
worse. The homestpads were sold by
the receivers of the loan companies,
and were tratlicked off to spectators
! for dollar to five dollars an acre,
lands which are selling at from $50
to $50 All acre at this moment.
Two things have brought back the
people to the drier west, and re-estab-
lishtl prosperity and happiness there.
One is cycle OF moist years. The
other is II. W. Campbell Those who
depend solely on the wet years con-
tinuing will ''go broke" as did their
predecessors. Those who depend Oh
the philosophy taught by Campbell
will weather the droughts that must
come, and WILDE prosperous. Camp
bell was South Dakota farmer, and
in the boom times made money and
did well. When the drought wiped
out his neighbors it wiped him out,
too financially. II there had not
been in him something ont Of the or
binary. it would have wiped him ont
completely. But after the extin-
punishment OF thousands of ordinary
men. Campbell was still there.
An idea is sometimes the best of
life preservers. Campbell climbed
on the back of Il hobby and rode out
Of the gloom and disaster of those
stormy times. His hobby was the
idea that if people only knew how to
cultivate that soil. it would grow
crops in the dryest seasons: and that
with p.oper culture. the farmers of
Iowa. Wisconsin. and all the other
mld-western states. could laugh ut
the severest drought ever known to
them.
lie calculated the weight Of an inch
OF rainfall. and figured ii all out in
something like this manner:
An inch of rainfall weighs about
l2o tons for every acre Of land.
The years that had bankrulted him
and his neighbors had been seasons
OF drought, but nevertheless. there
had fallen from twelve to twenty
inches of water during each OF them.
ton OF dry crop requires. on the
average, something like three hun.
cred tons of water for the growth of
the plants that make it. so that the
fifteen inches If rainfall Of those dry
years, II it had all been saved for the