Arizona republican., 1911-04-24
DRY FARMING EXPERT
VISITING IN VALLEY
What Yavapai County is Doing to
Develop a Latent Resource.

| Among the visitors who came from
| Prescott Friday evening on the boost
! ers' excursion was one man who
! is in Prescott only temporarily. but
! who has earned distinction as a very
efficient booster for the entire west
| ern country. Reference is made to
/ DR. '. r. Cooke of Cheyenne, director
of dry farming for the state of
wyoming. He came to Arizona at
the instance Of the Prescott Chamber
! of Commerce to make a thorough in
I spectlOn OF the valleys in YaVapai
county both great and small, with
view Of passing judgment on the
| probability Of making dry farming a
success therein. Naturally DR.. Cooke
wanted to call on Governor Sloan and
wanted to see this valley and its irri-
cation projects and there was no
better time than 10 come with the
cXcursionists With a number of
them he remained over for a few
days and yesterday he went 10 Roose-
Welt with Charles Lynch Of jerome
Or. Cooke was the first man to de-
monstrate to the satisfaction Of the
people Of Wyoming. the success of
dry farming and upon that demon
stratlon the state has seen the wis
dom Of utilizing the information at
Its disposal To the fullest extent
possible with its finances. and is do
ing all II can TO encourage its cfti-
zens towards further development
Two years ago it appropriated So
600 and placed DR.. Cooke at the head
OF dry farming station which is
h.. 4.
crops by irrigation" Of the soil
rather than by irrigation" of it.
TIE doctor has had thirty years Of
experience and study of dry farm
lLG processes He does not yet pre-
tend To know near all there is To
learn concerning it for every To-
caIlty has its own little problems.
but IT Is very doubtful if ANYBODY
L" date knows any more about the
subject than he does
The doctor has spent about tv,,,
weeks in looking over the Yavapai
valleys and in studying the local
Genealogical and other features He
says unhesitatingly that dry farming
may be made success in that sec
ton II it is properly pursued. It
must be intelligent dry farming how
ever. one cannot merely scatter
the seed and wait for nature TO do
the rest, without reaping certain
failure. Properly followed he SAYS he
believes all the cereals and alfalfa
ana kindred crops may be raised very
successfully. There are many fail
ures in dry farming because the ex-
perimenters do not farm hard enough
or with the proper tools or with
sufficient thoroughness.
Thorough cultivation is the urin-
cipal secret. but the rainfall the
temperature. the evaporation and
other things peculiar to anv par-
ticular section must be taken into
account in developing the proper
method. Tavapai county has as much
rain in a year as do the dry farming
sections adjacent To Cheyenne. But
1t is the proper irrigation" Of the
SOIL at the proper time that gets
results.
AaVapal county. or more accurat-
ely speaking the Prescott chamber of
commerce. never did anything more
illustrative Of its progressive policy
than in securing the services of DIR
Cooke in this matter for agriculture
mas until recently been regarded as
something of a joke in that county
The percentage Of soil area in pro-
portion 10 that of rock area. is
probably smaller than in anv other
county in the territory. except per
maps ella county. yet its possibilities /
are recognized and few acres we'll |
titled viii represent more wealth than |
a vast eXpanse Of unutilized land |
For the last two years the energetic |
Navapai commissioners have been do |
ing things at the territorial fair that |
have greatly encouraged them and |
that have put something Of a crimp |
IN the So-called agricultural counties. /
Especially was this true in 1909 when |
NaVapai carried off the prize for |
the best all round agricultural dis |
play. Those who know are aware |
that the honor was largely by de-
fault, or due to the lethargy of !
Maricopa, Yuma and Graham coun-
ties but that did not detract from
Tavapai's victory and when the min
ing county gets its dry farming area
properly developed there may be more