124 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The work at the Umatilhi Experiment Farm, at Hermiston, Oreg., 

 is comparatively new, but some few definite results have already 

 been secured. It has been found that young nursery stock is very 

 much more dependable for orchard planting on the Umatilla project 

 than trees two or more years old. The experiments with winter 

 cover crops have shown the superiority of the vetches for such pur- 

 poses. There has been noted a decidedly depressing effect on the 

 growth of the trees Avhere alfalfa is grown in the orchard close to 

 the trees. 



DRY-LAND AGRICULTURE INVESTIGATIONS. 



For the past 30 years there has been an ever-increasing interest 

 in the agricultural development of the fertile plains extending from 

 the base of the Rocky Mountains eastward for an average distance 

 of about 300 miles and from the Canadian boundary on the north to 

 the Gulf of Mexico on the south. This area is known as the Great 

 Plains. It is in this area that dry farming has reached its most 

 extensive, if not its highest, development. 



The term " dry farming " is one that has come into general use to 

 meet the need of a descriptive name for that type of farming which 

 has been developed witliout irrigation in semiarid regions where irri- 

 gation is desirable but impracticable. 



Prior to the year 1900 the department had carried on various lines 

 of investigations in this area, dealing with some of the more im- 

 portant specific agricultural problems, such as grain and forage- 

 crop investigations, but by this time it had become evident that if the 

 agricultural problems which the settlers and home builders had to 

 meet were to be solved there must be a much more comprehensive 

 plan of investigation devised. 



To meet this need the Office of Dry-Land Agriculture was organ- 

 ized and placed in charge of a man who had had long experience in 

 this region both as a practical farmer and as an investigator at one 

 of the State experiment stations. In the organization and develop- 

 ment of the work the following objects were recognized as funda- 

 mental: To establish and maintain close personal contact with the 

 actual settlers and their problems and to work out these problems 

 under the same soil and climatic environment as that surroundinof 

 the settlers; to establish a sufficient number of field stations, so dis- 

 tributed as fairly to represent the area as a whole: to have these 

 stations established on a permanent basis, so that the work would 

 continue uninterruptedly through a long series of years; to have 

 the work at all the stations so thoroughly coordinated that results 

 obtained at each would be comparable with that of all the others; 

 to enlist the active cooperation of the State experiment stations and 

 of the various bureaus and offices of the department, of State, county, 



