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
This review of the question of dry-farm fertility is intended merely
as a forecast of coming developments. At the present time
soil-fertility is not giving the dry-farmers great concern, but as
in the countries of abundant rainfall the time will come when it
will be equal to that of water conservation, unless indeed the
dry-farmers heed the lessons of the past and adopt from the start
proper practices for the maintenance of the plant-food stored in the
soil. The principle explained in Chapter IX, that the amount of
water required for the production of one pound of water diminishes
as the fertility increases, shows the intimate relationship that
exists between the soil-fertility and the soil-water and the
importance of maintaining dry-farm soils at a high state of
fertility.
CHAPTER XV
IMPLEMENTS FOR DRY-FARMING
Cheap land and relatively small acre yields characterize
dry-farming. Consequently Iarger areas must be farmed for a given
return than in humid farming, and the successful pursuit of
dry-farming compels the adoption of methods that enable a man to do
the largest amount of effective work with the smallest expenditure
of energy. The careful observations made by Grace, in Utah, lead to
the belief that, under the conditions prevailing in the
intermountain country, one man with four horses and a sufficient
supply of machinery can farm 160 acres, half of which is
summer-fallowed every year; and one man may, in favorable seasons
under a carefully planned system, farm as much as 200 acres. If one
man attempts to handle a larger farm, the work is likely to be done
in so slipshod a manner that the crop yield decreases and the total
returns are no larger than if 200 acres had been well tilled.
One man with four horses would be unable to handle even 160 acres
were it not for the possession of modern machinery; and dry-farming,
more than any other system of agriculture, is dependent for its
success upon the use of proper implements of tillage. In fact, it is
very doubtful if the reclamation of the great arid and semiarid
regions of the world would have been possible a few decades ago,
before the invention and introduction of labor-saving farm
machinery. It is undoubtedly further a fact that the future of
dry-farming is closely bound up with the improvements that may be
made in farm machinery. Few of the agricultural implements on the
market to-day have been made primarily for dry-farm conditions. The
best that the dry-farmer can do is to adapt the implements on the
market to his special needs. Possibly the best field of
investigation for the experiment stations and inventive minds in the
arid region is farm mechanics as applied to the special needs of
dry-farming.
Clearing and breaking
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