Dry-Farming : A System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low RainfallWidtsoe, John Andreas
Science
Dry-Farming : A System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low Rainfall
Widtsoe, John Andreas
Dry farming
should not go hand in hand. Wherever water is within reach, the
homestead is also possible. The recent development of the gasoline
motor for pumping purposes makes possible a small home garden
wherever a little water is available. The lack of water for culinary
purposes is really the problem that has stood between the joint
development of dry-farming and the live stock industry. The whole
matter, however, looks much more favorable to-day, for the efforts
of the Federal and state governments have succeeded in discovering
numerous subterranean sources of water in dry-farm districts. In
addition, the development of small irrigation systems in the
neighborhood of dry-farm districts is helping the cause of the live
stock industry. At the present time, dry-farming and the live stock
industry are rather far apart, though undoubtedly as the desert is
conquered they will become more closely associated. The question
concerning the best maintenance of soil-fertility remains the same;
and the ideal way of maintaining fertility is to return to the soil
as much as is possible of the plant-food taken from it by the crops,
which can best be accomplished by the development of the business of
keeping live stock in connection with dry-farming.
If live stock cannot be kept on a dry-farm, the most direct method
of maintaining soil-fertility is by the application of commercial
fertilizers. This practice is followed extensively in the Eastern
states and in Europe. The large areas of dry-farms and the high
prices of commercial fertilizers will make this method of manuring
impracticable on dry-farms, and it may be dismissed from thought
until such a day as conditions, especially with respect to price of
nitrates and potash, are materially changed.
Nitrogen, which is the most important plant-food that may be absent
from dry-farm soils, may be secured by the proper use of leguminous
crops. All the pod-bearing plants commonly cultivated, such as peas,
beans, vetch, clover, and lucern, are able to secure large
quantities of nitrogen from the air through the activity of bacteria
that live and grow on the roots of such plants. The leguminous crop
should be sown in the usual way, and when it is well past the
flowering stage should be plowed into the ground. Naturally, annual
legumes, such as peas and beans, should be used for this purpose.
The crop thus plowed under contains much nitrogen, which is
gradually changed into a form suitable for plant assimilation. In
addition, the acid substances produced in the decay of the plants
tend to liberate the insoluble plant-foods and the organic matter is
finally changed into humus. In order to maintain a proper supply of
nitrogen in the soil the dry-farmer will probably soon find himself
obliged to grow, every five years or oftener, a crop of legumes to
be plowed under.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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