American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1915-12-30
Henry Wallace's Estimate
of Dry Land Farming.

out, the sorghum vas green as spring
lettuce and the cherries In the orchard
looked like irrigated fruit, but when
Herbert of Calhan dropped a match on
the grass It set Il on fire and he re-
marked, Parsons raises crops where
nature cannot raise grass"
What are our brains for except to
buck against nature and turf her laws
TO our advantage. We are told that a
man must have from $500 to $4,000
capital in order to dry farm. No man
can say positively what a man must
have 10 make a success In this indus
try. 1t is the personal equation that
counts. A man may have ten thousand
dollars worth OF brains In the back
of his head and nothing in his pockets
Dr. he may have ten thousand In the
bank and a void where his brains
ought to be.
Then the wife is a big factor. She
may be a real woman raised by intel
ligent people with common sense, or
she may be some kind OF a feminist
raised on modern fads and foolishness.
We know OF q man who started In dry
farming with a Jack, al old mare and
800 In his pocket. He made a few
dollars off his jack, bought some old
broken down mares for a song ana
began raising and selling mules. The
last we heard Of him he was selling
mules for 5000 apiece. We know OF an
other man who had $1,000 who started
In dry farming by blowing the whole
prairie two inches deep and his old
land five. Naturally he went broke
the first dry year, and says there Is
nothing In dry farming. We know OF
naother man who went to dry farming
In the seventies In the deserts Of CAL
~ifornia, 20 known as the San Joaquin
Valley, where the precipitation ran
about twelve inches. He raised wheat
by deep blowing and summer fallow
methods and is now worth 800, 900. He
commenced with a few dollars and
credit. The dry farm wheat harvest
of this valley Is now valued at 49,
900 900.
II Is utterly impossible to say wheth-
err a man will succeed at anything or
not, with or without money, therefore
we always refrain from giving this
kind OF advice. III a man gets a no
ton In his head he is bound to try
It out II he is game. Are we a ma.
ton of m~ollycoddles that we should
be afraid 10 take a chance? As far al
the agents are concerned who Ii,
about the annual rainfall to pros
pectiye settlers, we would say
that II Ia up to the buyers to In
vestigate his option and the condi
tons surrounding At, as the law says
"caveat emptor."
The greatest danger of the new set
tier Is running against shallow pillow
ing literature, or as Mr.. Wallace says
applying old fashioned methods iron
the wet states, for there are still som
city people and agriculturists from tn
East who persist In showing their lg
norance by declaimlng that dry farm
ing is nothing but good farming.
There is nothing mysterious an
nothing difficult about dry farming; 4
il simply n different branch of ag
riculture to humid farming and the oil
ideas must be abandoned and replace,
by methods that will suit the enyir
onment.
Some OF the best dry farmers W
know OF were professional men VIII
took IL up for various reasons Dr
Bishop. late of Billings. Mont, wishin,
for an outdoor life, took II up a fe,
years ago, studied out the deep tillag
methods, went to the dry parts OF Or
egon and made a big success OF Il
raising twice as much per acre as ha
ever been raised there before.
Half OF the world has been dry
farmed for thousands Of years, onl
We have only just found 1t out. Rus
sia has supplied half OF Europe wit
wheat from a area on which the pre-
cipitation Is less than eighteen inche.
Jerusalem and It's environs hav
farmed for thousands OF years on
fourteen inch precipitation, and &C
cording to the book OF jeremiah, tn
Jews always fallowed their land. 1
the dry parts OF Italy and Greece tn
a%ncients dry farmed aud raised grape,
&c. on fifteen TO sixteen inches G
rainfall.
Adjoining the great deserts OF Al
RIGA dates and olives have been raise
ON nine inches and In South Africa CIV
erything under the sun is raised o
eighteen to twenty inches, In Chin
half the country is semi-arid, but the
raise plenty of produce, and particu
iariy garden stuff. By slipping the.
land TO the rows. planting in the dea
burrows, us Il were. fortilizing hea,
lily and shading with sticks.
In the uplands of Mexico there ar
amy quantities OF beans, peanuts an
corn raised on a precipitation {
twelve inches and the writer he
seen fifty bushels OF wheat per acr