Elmore County Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1910-1915, 1910-12-03
Dry Farming.

at all other times, the Secretary
- Agriculture keeps pretty busy
saving wood and working for the
agricultural advancement of the
country. One of the greatest
things which the Secretary has
done has been the encouragement
of the farmers in the semi-arid
sections of the United States
where the rainfall has been ac
counted insufficient for agricul
ture, but where, with scientific
methods, it has been demonstrated
that good crops can be raised
and the boundaries of the Great
American Desert can be pushed
back upon the map until the al
legged desert shrinks up almost to
nothingness.
The United States Department
of Agriculture has for several
years been carrying on investlga-
tions and accommodating data re-
garding dry land agriculture in
the Great Plains, and in compll-
ance with the urgent demand
made by settlers, actual and pro-
spective, for information concern
ing the best methods OF farming
in that section, it has issued two
bulletins giving publicity to such
facts and figures as have direct
bearing on the subject, although
it is not claimed that sufficient
data have been accumulated to
form a basis for final conclusions.
The results announced are, how
ever, of sufficient Importance to
deserve careful consideration, and
they throw strong light upon the
controverted questions OF summer
tillage, continuous cropping, and
crop rotation, and show that IN
addition to actual rainfall ethe
questions of evaporation and run
off have much to do with the sue
cessful production OF crops IN
those sections. Accurate inform
alton regarding the precipitation
in many sections of the West is
now available as the result OF the
extended operations of the United
States Weather Bureau; many
of the records are complete for
years, and being of value to the
prospective settler, have been
computed in rainfall tables and
have been included in the
bulletins.
The bulletins treat to a greater
or less degree upon continuous
cropping as compared with alter
nate cropping and summer tlllage
upon crop rotation compared with
continuous cropping and the rel
ative farm value of crops OF
wheat, oats and barley as pro-
duced by the various rotations
and by continuous cropping. me
question as to the relative merit
of disking the corn stubble Tor
spring wheat and oats and sum-
mer tillage, and the relative mer
it's of fall and spring blowing re-
ceive considerable attention and
are discussed in one or the other
with the distribution of rainfall,
rapidity of evaporation, and the
amount of moisture conserved by
the different processes.
Prospective settlers are apt to
give very little attention to the
climate features other than the
total rainfall. They do not al
ways assure themselves that the
figures given for a particular
region represent the normal rain.
fall and not simply the rainfall
for a single year. They ignore
almost completely the frequency
of torrential rains, the seasonal
distribution of the rain, the loss
of water through water run-otf,
the occurrence of hail, and the
amount of evaporation. These
bulletins are intended to bring
the Importance Of such factors
the attention of the prospective
settlers in regions of limited rain
fall. The bulletins also contain
tables showing the normal rain
fall for practically every state
in these regions where precipita
ton records are available, the ia
bles being supplemented by State
maps showing at a glance the
distribution of the rainfall in the
State