The Springfield herald., 1915-04-02
A Weekly ak
On Dry Farming,


| 1.-THE above text. taken from the Denver West
ern Fam Life, We shall keep at the bead Of these
talks for the volume Of fact that IL boiled down
in the few words there 10 in i'll.
Storing Moisture
The secret of success in dry.
crop raising is in annually in
creasing the depth of the mois-
ture bed. The man who does
this is farming, and the man who
doesn't is in the wrong country
and in the wrong line of business.
The difference in moisture
depth and moisture retention be
tween tirst-year ground and old
ground is something that tie
new man ought to know in order
properly to understand the prof.
abilities of that new ground the
first few years.
1t might be thought that with
all the rain that fell last year and
has fallen u2t D the present time,
new ground, especially in sandy
land. ought to have as good mois-
ture as any other ground; but
the facts are that should it turn
off very dry at just the wrong
time, new ground may fail to
make fodder while the old ground
makes good grain.
We will give one instance as an
illustration of this. A man
broke up som ething like seventy
acres of sandy land, and raised
on it the first year an immense
crop, it being a good crop year.
The man with an adjoining
farm had been farming same
for upwards of fifteen years.
When the survey was made
the line between them was
thrown over on the neighbor'
old ground several rods, and the
lire fence was moved according.
ly.
Now for the second crop on
this new ground, that had yield
ed good crop the first year.
The ends of the rows crossed ov-
er on the old ground, so of course
the planting and cultivation had
to be the same. 1t turned off
extremely dry. with the result
that at the end of the season
the ends of the rows on the old
ground yielded good maize heads,
while very little of the other
could be utilized for fodder.
We spoke last week of the sod
crop, and how to best handle it;
but we believe sod crop, even
where handled the best possible,
stands less than one chance in
ten of making the same kind of
crop as old ground, and we be-
lieve that mar is safest who
banks on a total failure IF his
sod crop, and makes his arrange
ments accor dinghy.
That's our idea of the first year.
Our idea of the second year is
that it is little safer than the
first, as the moisture by the first
years cultivation was put down
a little deeper than it had been
pro vided that the season was
normal.
1t might be put in this way:
You can bank on the second
year more than the first, the
the third more than the second.
and you may safely continue
this increased probability easily
up to the tenth year; provided of
course you are doing moisture
storing farming.
The man who happens to have
the right seasons to make good
crops up to the time that the
Istored moisture makes linn what
we might call immune to drouth
might easily consider himself
under the special protection Of
| the gods.
/ 1t may so happen that the
seasons in certain localities may
continue 10 be such that some, or
even many, who raised their
first crop lastyear may continue
with good crops until the stored
moisture puts them on the solid
rock Of safety; but we are going
to be very frank to say that we
believe the chances are good
for Somo Ot,od old faS Sh;onoa