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
The other experiment stations in the arid and semi-arid region were
not slow to take up the work for their respective states. Fortier
and Linfield, who had spent a number of years in Utah and had become
somewhat familiar with the dry-farm practices of that state,
initiated dry-farm investigations in Montana, which have been
prosecuted with great vigor since that time. Vernon, under the
direction of Foster, who had spent four years in Utah as Director of
the Utah Station, initiated the work in New Mexico. In Wyoming the
experimental study of dry-farm lands began by the private enterprise
of H. B. Henderson and his associates. Later V. T. Cooke was placed
in charge of the work under state auspices, and the demonstration of
the feasibility of dry-farming in Wyoming has been going on since
about 1907. Idaho has also recently undertaken dry-farm
investigations. Nevada, once looked upon as the only state in the
Union incapable of producing crops without irrigation, is
demonstrating by means of state appropriations that large areas
there are suitable for dry-farming. In Arizona, small tracts in this
sun-baked state are shown to be suitable for dry-farm lands. The
Washington Station is investigating the problems of dry-farming
peculiar to the Columbia Basin, and the staff of the Oregon Station
is carrying on similar work. In Nebraska, some very important
experiments dry-farming are being conducted. In North Dakota there
were in 1910 twenty-one dry-farm demonstration farms. In South
Dakota, Kansas, and Texas, provisions are similarly made for
dry-farm investigations. In fact, up and down the Great Plains area
there are stations maintained by the state or Federal government for
the purpose of determining the methods under which crops can be
produced without irrigation.
At the head of the Great Plains area at Saskatchewan one of the
oldest dry-farm stations in America is located (since 1888). In
Russia several stations are devoted very largely to the problems of
dry land agriculture. To be especially mentioned for the excellence
of the work done are the stations at Odessa, Cherson, and Poltava.
This last-named Station has been established since 1886.
In connection with the work done by the experiment stations should
be mentioned the assistance given by the railroads. Many of the
railroads owning land along their respective lines are greatly
benefited in the selling of these lands by a knowledge of the
methods whereby the lands may be made productive. However, the
railroads depend chiefly for their success upon the increased
prosperity of the population along their lines and for the purpose
of assisting the settlers in the arid West considerable sums have
been expended by the railroads in cooperation with the stations for
the gathering of information of value in the reclamation of arid
lands without irrigation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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