The new era., 1911-12-07
DRY LAND EXTREMISTS
Some Unknown Quantity Gov
erns the Returns.
Men Who spend Much Time In City
Once Not Competent to Write on
Intricate subJsot 40 Those
In Close Contact.

To see thirty or forty bushels Of
inches Of rainfall, and then drive for
miles through fields that will not give
back the seed with the same tillage.
and possibly slightly more rainfall.
ought to convince our dry farming en-
thusiasts that the natural moisture
Of tho soil or subsoil. or the moisture
holding capacity Of the soil, or some
other quality seldom evident at first,
largely governs the returns from dry
farming.
We have recently come across even
more extreme differences than the
ones noted. We have seen good to
abundant crops on seemingly as dry
land al could be found-with but little
attention given to dry farming meth
DDS: while not far from 1t almost to-
tai failure where every mechanical de-
tail of dry farming had been carefully
carried out. says the Dakota Farmer.
These things convince us more than
ever that men who spend most of
their time In city oface-or who
visit but one or two strips Of country
this intricate subject as are some OF
those whose every working hour
brings them in close contact with the
soil and possibly with the mortgage.
All too many jump at conclusions
which everyday facts will not justify.
and make assertions altogether too
general. and that are not only mis-
leading. but that we know are not
true.
We are glad to note that there is q
more frank admitting, by very many
Of these teachers ana experimenters.
that 1t takes certain amount of
moisture in all soils to grow a crop,
and that moisture has to come from
the heavens, from the subsoil or be
conserved by accumulation, and that
moisture cannot be created where 1t
does not exist.
They must admit, too. that there are
soils and much of them. that will
never make anything but very uncer-
tain returns where there are but flf
teen inches Of rainfall. 1t is easy to
make glowing assertions. that are true
enough with many soils and subsoils.
but to get onto dry, hard-baked
prairie, with an almost impervious
subsoil-unless it does hold that pecu-
| liar quality which responds so quickly
to culture-and make 1t produce at all
worth while. is quite another thing
There is much dry soil which will
never do 1t, unless with an expendi-
ture of time. tillage. horse flesh and
patience not one man in a hundred
possesses, and then in many. many In
stances 1t will not.
| We know 1t is much easier, and
very much more popular. to join with
the extremists In this thing, point to
the almost everywhere-to-be-foun in
dividual successes and shut our eyes
to the discouraged. misled and posi-
bly, ruined, and assert that this, that
and the other system will wiring enor-
nous and certain yields from any and
all dry or desert lands; but we know
there is another and larger side to 1t
all, and our sympathies go out to the
man who must experiment long and
patiently at his own expense before
he knows whether his land will re-
spond to dry farming methods or not;
whether yields sufficient will come to
him on his own particular piece of
dry land to pay for every other year
tillage, and the extra labor and ex-
pense he must go to before he can
hope to equal ordinary farm land re-
turns.
In the great Golden Valley stretch
ing north and south of Beach and WI
tana line we are told that the yields
compare favorably with those of the
Red River Valley This we know to
be true, at least for some seasons, for
we have rode over both valleys from
end to end more than once; but dry
farming is not practiced by one farm
er in hundred in Golden Valley.
But Judith Basin," we are asked,
doesn't that yield?" True. but one
can ride for miles there without find
ing man who even knows what dry
farming means, much less practices it
Those sections have a soil peculiar
to themselves, and when combined
with slightly greater, and usually
more seasonab!e rainfall than the
country on either side OF them, have
brought forth excellent crops with the
most inexcusably haphazard farming
we ever saw. 1t is distinctly dishon-
est to point to these sections. or 9TH
ers like them, as proofs of what dry
farming will do.
We take second place with no man
for the high regard in which we hold
dry farming and most dry farming
teachers; but do say that the sweep
ing assertions made by many. who
from actual and wide experience and
observation. are not competent to
write or speak on the subject at all,
is dangerously and wrongfully mis-
leading, and Is doing as much to him
der the cause Of dry farming as all
the laundering Of the beginners.