EXPERIME.^TS IN DRY FARMING IN THE GREAT BASIN. 13 

 PRIVATE EXPERIMENTS IX DRY FARMING. 



It is not the present purpose to devote niiicli space to an account 

 of the beginning of dry farming in the Great Basin, but it may be 

 said in passing that it was jirobably first systematically tried in the 

 Cache Valley, near Logan, Utah, about 1870, or shortly before. The 

 first attempts resulted in failure, but in a few years enough had been 

 learned to justify a continuation and even a considerable extension 

 of the practice. The idea seems to have spread slowly at first, and 

 it has been only since 1885, or later, that it has reached any appre- 

 ciable projDortions, even in the Cache Valley, where water for irriga- 

 tion was until recently ample for the needs of all the settlers. 



Within the past two decades, and particularly during the last one, 

 there has been an enormous increase in the acreage farmed without 

 irrigation, until practically all the arable land in this valley is now 

 utilized either with or without irrigation. The Twelfth Census, 

 which gives the acreage of crops grown in 1899, reports a total of 

 58,658 acres irrigated in Cache County, which includes the Cache 

 Valley and~little else, while the total acreage in specified crops for the 

 same year is nearly twice that area, so that for that year the acreage 

 farmed without irrigation nearly equaled the irrigated acreage. The 

 increase in acreage devoted to both kinds of farming has been rapid 

 since 1899, and it is probable that at present there is more dry-farmed 

 land in this valley than irrigated land. In the Bear River Valley 

 and in the valley of the Malade River there is also a large area of 

 dry-farmed land, which is rapidly extending northward and west- 

 ward. 



Along the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake, on the lower benches 

 of the Wasatch Mountains, there are isolated patches of land farmed 

 without irrigation, but in some of these cases, at least, there is prob- 

 ably subirrigation from seepage water. On the foothills of the west 

 side of the Jordan River Valley, between Utah Lake and Great Salt 

 Lake, and also in Utah County east of Utah Lake, there is now^ con- 

 siderable dry farming on the higher lands. Much of this is of very 

 recent development. 



Directly south of Great Salt Lake, in Tooele County,' Utah, there 

 is a broad valley in which dry farming is now 2:)racticed to a con- 

 siderable extent. In the eastern part of Juab County and south of 

 Utah Lake, bet^veen Xephi and Levan, there has been a very rapid 

 development of dry farming within the past six years. 



The accompanying sketch map (fig. 2), which shows approxi- 

 mately the location of the irrigated land in the State of Utah, may 

 serve to show also the location of the land farmed without irrigation, 

 since it is only around the edges of the irrigated land that dry farm- 

 ing is at present carried on. 



103 



