600 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Bections considerable land has been homesteaded by Americans for 

 speculative purposes and only enoup:K work done to comply with the 

 homestead laws. The ranching intkistry has been largely broken 

 up by the encroachment of the homesteaders and is now confined 

 principally to the rough, untillable areas. This survey showed that 

 nearly 2,750,000 acres, or over 10 per cent, of the land in North 

 Dakota west of the one hundredth meridian is too rough and broken 

 for profitable cultivation and will always be suitable for ranching 

 purposes only. Nearly 2,000,000 acres of this consists of the famous 

 Baa Lands, ^fany people have homesteaded land where a large pro- 

 portion of the surface is too rough for farming and the}' will not be able 

 to depend on crop production, while 160 acres is too small a unit for 

 stock raising. The precipitation is near the minimum for profitable 

 cro]^ production and years of drought may be expected when crop 

 jnelds will be very slight. A combination of stock raising and farm- 

 ing is safer than depending on grain growing alone, but the farms 

 will have to be larger than 160 acres in order that a suitable system 

 may be evolved. A very large proportion of the land is not suitable 

 for irrigation, and dry farming will have to be depended upon in 

 raising crops for the greater part of western North Dakota. 



South DaJcota. — About one-fifth of the land, or roughly 5,500,000 

 acres, in western South Dakota was found too rough for profitable 

 cultivation and suitable only for stock raising and forestry. Much 

 of tliis rough land is comprised in the Black Hills region. Large 

 areas of the region are still held as Indian reservations. Some of 

 these have been recently opened up to settlement and great numbers 

 of people have come into the region, principally from the Middle 

 West. The soils range from sands to loams and clays. The greater 

 part of the area will have to be farmed without irrigation. Consid- 

 erable land has been taken up that is not suited for the crops that 

 are adapted to the region, being either too rough or too sandy for 

 profitable cultivation of grain crops. Agricultural and climatic 

 conditions are much the same as found in North Dakota. 



Texas. — In southern Texas a large number of soils w^ere found well 

 adapted to many crops. Ow4ng to uncertainty of rainfall in that 

 portion of southern Texas west of the ninety-seventh meridian, irri- 

 gation must be practiced when possible to insure profitable crop 

 production. This is done to a considerable extent in the vicinity of 

 the Rio Grande. The soils are well adapted to cotton, corn, vege- 

 tables, truck crops, sugar cane, and rice. This country is being sold 

 to many people who move here in order to escape the cold winters 

 of the north. Land values here have risen greatly in the last few 

 years and many large ranches have been cut up into small tracts for 

 farms. Some land is sold in 5, 10, and 20 acre tracts under the adver- 

 tisement that it is possible to grow truck and oranges or other tropical 

 fruits and make money on such small areas. This may be possible 

 in some of the more favored localities, and the reconnoissance survey 

 has outlined the soils adapted to the different crops and gives informa- 

 tion valuable to the homeseeker. The results of the survey seem 

 to show that the production of profitable crops of the tropical fruits is 

 uncertain, except where protected to some extent, although the soils 

 are well suited to some of these fruits. 



The Panhandle region of Texas has seen a remarkable influx of 

 American farmers in the last few years. The total value of property 



