The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1910-08-26
DRY FARMING METHODS
Interest in the Congress, October to
6, at Spokane, Grows-SoTe
Good Results

Guy Waring, a farmer and merchant
near Winthrop, Okanogan county
Wash, makes the following report:
Altitude, 1865 TO $500 feet. APP
proximate acreage in county under dry
farming, $4,000; possible of operation
under dry farming methods, 100000
acres. Mean average annual precipita-
ton for 10 years, Is inches, most OF
which occurs during winter and spring.
Dry farmers are practicing annual and
biennial cropping systems. Informant
believes annual cropping system shows
best results.
Dry farming has been practiced five
years. Most profitable crops thus far
are wheat, oats and corn, the first two
for forage. Deep blowing gives best
returns. Horticulture is successful
when methods are observed. Alfalfa
is produced under dry farming.
Mr.. Waring gives minimum and
maximum acreage production in his
district as follows: Spring and winter
wheat, l to 215 tons hay; oats, DE
tons hay; corn, 10 to 40 bushels; alfal-
ia, 8 to S tons; potatoes, up to 200
bushels.
Informant has been a dry farmer
three years, and believes in the system.
He crops annually and plows six inch
es, narrowing often to conserve moist
ure; harrows and cultivates corn seven
times. In seeding, he uses 80 to 90
pounds to the acre of wheat. Dry
lands in his vicinity have advanced
from $10-$20 to $20-$40 an acre in
five years.
J. w. Fry, Of Davenport, WASH,
writes:
I have farmed in my county and on
the same land for 81 years. At the
start we were all novices, and it was
during the years as they came and
went that we gradually attained to our
present knowledge of handling our
land, that we could resist the dry sea-
sons and still have fairly good crops.
To conserve the moisture is a strong
factor in growing crops.
Sometimes we thought that summer
fallow was the best way, and while it is
the essential step to maintain strength
in the land, we find that proper pre-
paration at seeding time is necessary.
If the farmer had time to use spring
tooth harrows for stirring the surface
and leveling the higher places, to drag
once, to roll with corrugated iron
roller, which smashes and pulverizes
clods and settles the soil, and then
drill the seed in to the depth of moist
ure and follow twice with harrow, the
surface would be we'll covered with
fine mulch.
When the above steps are carefully
taken, the farmer may expect fair
crop.
When the soil is we'll packed, capil-
larry action is strong. While we have
rolled after seeding, now we hold that
to roll before seeding presses the soil
and pulverizes the clods; then to drag
leaves finish that cannot bake; nor
can this process result in surface so
hard that warmth and air cannot circu-
late about the roots of the plants.
The same treatment applies to both
the fall blowing and the summer fall
low.
g In preparing for summer fallow when
seeding is over, it is best to disc the
land. This kills the weeds and saves
the moisture. The time available for
blowing is extended in this way, and
the work is made lighter on the horses
while blowing.
1 believe, too, in sub-soiling. The
Spalding Tilling pillow, made in Cleve-
land, Ohio, is the best l know of. Foul
land can be made clean by the use of
the above-named pillow. You can bury
wild oats, wild buckwheat and cookie
so deep that they cannot be resurect-
ed. This pillow throws four to six inches
of surface in last cut sixteen to twenty
inches deep, and then covers it with
second cut in the same furrow consist
ing of twelve inches of sub-soil, or
more if desirable.
"