The copper era and Morenci leader., 1912-07-26
DRY LAND EXTREMISTS
Some Unknown Quantity Gov
 erns the Returns.
Men Nshc spsnd Much Tlns In City offfce Not Competent to Write on intricate Subject as Thess
 ss In Close Contact

To see thirty or forty bushels of grain on dry land with but fifteen 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 the 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 as could be found-with but little attention given to dry farming meth ods; while not far from it 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 a city of1ce-or whc visit but one or two strips of country -are not so competent to write upon this intricate subject as are some rof 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 toe general, and that are not only mis leading. but that we know are not true.
 We are glad to note that there is a 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 ft does not exist.
 They must admit, too, that there are soils and much of them, that will tain returns where there are but If make glowing assertions, that are true enough with many soils and subsoils but to get onto a dry, hard-baked prairie, with an almost impervious subsoii-unless it does hold that peou. liar quality which responds so quickly to culture-and make it 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 possi- 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 it 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-
 
 hope to equal ordinary farm land re- turns.
 In the great Golden Valley, stretch ing north and south of Beach and Wi baux on the North Dakota and Mon- 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 CT in a 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 a nsan 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 seasonable rainfall: than the country on either side of them, have brought forth excellent crops with the most inexcusably haphazard farming we ever saw. It is distinctly dishon est to point to these sections, or oth CTS 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 hin. der the cause of dry farming as all the blundering of the beginners