PIXON-JUNIPER LAND PROBLEM 539' 



lands that are being irrigated are producing paying crops and are 

 undoubtedly being put to their highest use. The ones that are popu- 

 larly termed "dry farms" are those situated in the higher or rougher 

 parts of the type and are not irrigated because of the prohibitive 

 expense of getting water to them or because it is impossible to do so. 

 It is my opinion that these "dry farms" lands are not going to give a 

 sustained yield of paying crops and that they would yield a higher 

 annual money return if they were producing timber. 



The region between Dolores, Colorado, and Monticello, Utah, is 

 now largely made up of the "dry farms" and the popular opinion is 

 that they are highly successful, but I have found upon investigation 

 that they are not. For the last few years the summer precipitation 

 has been unusually favorable for dry farming activities, both because 

 ot its amount and the time of its coming. In the Paradox and 

 Gypsum valleys, which are between the ^Montezuma and Uncompahgre 

 Forests, are thou:-^ands of acres that were once considered valuable 

 for farming purposes. They have been abandoned because the re- 

 peated so-called "drouths," which were not that, but a natural climatic 

 condition, made successful crop production impossible. These last- 

 mentioned lands are very similar to those in the ]\Iontezuma Valley 

 and I believe that the experience had there will be repeated in the 

 IMontezun^a ^*alley. It is my opinion that if there were a ver}' few 

 dry farins scattered through the pinon and cedar type, the protective 

 effect of the timber stand might make farming them successful. But 

 the wholesale clearing of these lands with a later farming of them 

 results in increasing the factors that dry out the soil, that is, the 

 drying winds get an unrestricted sweep at the soil and no protection 

 is on the grcunl to hold the snowfall and to let it melt slowlv. The 

 rainfall that comes during the growing season is usually heavy and a 

 very large amount of the water runs off, thus failing to give the soil 

 the amount of moisture that it is entitled to. ]My contention is that 

 any of the land in the type that is capable of being irrigated should 

 be devoted to agriculture, but that all that can not be irrigated should 

 be used for the production of timber. 



As I see it, the greater part of these dry lands are going to be 

 abandoned some time in the future and that will leave a large area in 

 the pinon-juniper type of land that will rapidly become barren unless 

 planting of trees is done. Great harm to the region as a whole will 



