Weekly journal-miner., 1911-04-26

very few occasions in my life where I have had the honor of being as well received as since l have had the pleasure of coming to your county, last Sunday.
 I am going to try and give you few ideas of the outlook as to dry farming in your county. 1 am going to talk to you from the practical standpoint of a dry farmer as well as from the theoretical. l have been connected with agriculture for the last thirty years and have made special study of it. Yet, on the other hand, I want to say this Gas l said at the Dry Farming Congress at Spo- kane, Washington, few months ago), that although we acknowledge we are in the twentieth century and know that to be a fact, yet we do not know anything about agriculture. It is only a few years ago that the Department of Agriculture, at Wash ington, D. C.. published bulletins stating that it was impossible to raise a crop unless you had twenty inches of rainfall per annum. There are states in the Union, as Eastern Ore gon, Washington, Utah and Cali fornia, that are raising crops with as low a precipitation as nine and ten inches per annum.
 My first experience in dry farming was in Eastern Oregon and Wash ington, and I have in my mind s eye county called Sherman county, where they used to raise one crop in three years; where it took them if 4n In conserve moisture.
 The term "dry farming' is mis- homer. We ought to recognize the fact that we cannot raise crops with out moisture. but we have not vet learned with how little moisture we can mature a crop. However, we are learning every day; we are beginning to foresee the fact that in the so- called American Desert we raise the best crops of any part of the United States. We are also recognizing the fact that it takes less moisture to mature crop in nigh attitudes than in low
 Let me state here that it is i'm possible for me on such short eX- perience to make any hard and fast rules for your guidance, for the req son that I know hardly anything of your climatic conditions. The dry farmer as well as the irrigator must study his ground and the conditions affecting his portion of the country.
 The successful dry farmer, the man who wants to be successful in dry farming, is a man who must perceive on the start that he must utilize his brains as well as his muscle. He must recognize that it is just as i'm pOrtant to conduct farming upon business principles as it is to con duet a bank or become a successful merchant in town.
 The large majority of farmers do not know why they blow deep or why they blow shallow or why they should cultivate. There are great many people who cannot recognize the fact that they can prepare soil and by means of deep blowing and thorough cultivation conserve moisture from one year to the next. You can make your soil a receptacle for moisture just the same as you can a bank for your funds. You put in $1,000 and check out $500 and there is still $500 subject to your check. It is the same way with holding moisture m your soil. We have to admit that you can blow deep-eight, nine or ten incnes-and by proper methods of cultivation practically store up all the moisture which falls upon that ground.
 I can take any of the soil out here, where it can be plowed-plow, harrow and cultivate it, after every heavy rain, from now until fall, and I want to say to you, that I do not care how hot it gets or how hard the wind blows, I can keep moisture in that soil so that at any time you scrape off the surface soil you will find moisture stored therein.
 To do that, you have to recognize that in most of the semi-arid states the soil has been eompacted for ages. To give you an idea of what I mean let me illustrate one of my expert ences. On one of the demonstration farms l conducted in the central part of Wyoming, at a point some forty miles west of Casper, on the Chicago Northwestern railway, an expert ment along their line to show the possibilities of raising crops with al most the smallest amount of moisture that falls in the state of Wyoming, between nine and ten inches per an mum. The right-of-way along the railroad was plowed up. There were twenty acres on one side and twenty acres on the other side I had the ground plowed by the beginning of June and in October I went out to the farm on this open prairie and put in twenty acres of winter rye and twenty acres of winter wheat Let me tell you the condition of this plOwed ground: The railroad people said, when they took down the right of-way fence, that it would be put up on the outside of the plowed ground. When I went to drill this grain in, the fence had not been put up, so l got busy with the rail road people and they sent out a gang of Italians to put it up. It took these men a day to dig fifteen or eighteen post holes on the raw na- tive prairie. the holes being large, +braa fiat daan apd of +ro faa+ q;