4 i8 DRY FARMING 



of equal richness and purity. During IQOQ and 1910 crops on a commercial scale were 

 grown in East Anglia and exported to Holland for manufacture, but owing to the large 

 amount of capital required for a modern factory none of the projected under- 

 takings was able to make a start. The Government were precluded from 

 extending any assistance so long as they were bound by the provisions of the 

 Brussels Convention, but in 1912 a branch of a Dutch company established 

 a factory at Cantley in Norfolk. It may be taken as established that profitable crops 

 may be grown in England at prices equivalent to those paid by the Continental factories. 

 The question is whether the manufacturing process can be conducted cheaply enough 

 to make the industry profitable. (A. D. HALL.) 



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DRY FARMING 



The term " Dry Farming " has come into use to meet the need for a descriptive 

 name for that type of farming which has been developed without irrigation in semi- 

 arid regions where irrigation is desirable but impracticable. No infallible rule can be laid 

 down as to the range of annual precipitation which will include the dry farming re- 

 gions and delimit them from humid regions on the one hand, and from arid regions 

 on the other. It is however fairly well recognised that, in most parts of the United 

 States and Canada, the minimum requirement for dry farming is represented by about 

 12 inches annual precipitation, and that 20 inches or more is sufficient, when properly 

 distributed, for crop production, on most soils of the Middle West, by ordinary methods 

 of humid agriculture. 



For several years past annual international congresses have been held in the west- 

 ern states of the United States in the interest of the dry farming movement. The 

 5th congress, held at Spokane, Wash., October 3-6, 1910, was attended by 1,200 dele- 

 gates and the 6th, held at Colorado Springs, Colo., October 16-20, 1911 and presided 

 over by President J. H. Worst of North Dakota Agricultural College, was even more 

 satisfactory. The seventh was held at Lethbridge, 1 Alberta, Canada, October 21- 

 25, 1912 and was attended by delegates from 15 nations. W. R. Motherwell, minis- 

 ter of agriculture for Saskatchewan, was chosen president for the ensuing year and 

 resolutions were adopted favouring the raising of a fund of $1,000,000 for the purpose 

 of maintaining permanent headquarters and inaugurating a world-wide propaganda. 

 Oklahoma City, Okla., was selected as the place for holding the 1913 congress. An 

 important part of the work of the U.S. department of agriculture and of many state 

 agriculture experiment stations in 1912 related to the subject of dry farming. 



The most distinctive feature of dry farming, as compared with other types of farm- 

 ing, is that it recognises the conservation and utilisation of moisture as the aim and 

 end of all agricultural practices having to do with soil preparation and crop produc- 

 tion. Even the problems involved in the quality of the crop produced, and the main- 

 tenance of soil fertility, which are of major importance in most systems of agriculture, 

 assume a minor importance in dry farming. It is more important that a variety be 

 selected that is reasonably certain to grow and produce a moderate crop of fair quality 

 under semi-arid conditions than to select one that might produce a superior quality 

 and quantity of crop if climatic conditions happened to be favourable, but would fail 

 to produce any crop under adverse conditions. The problems of soil fertility under 

 dry farming conditions are relatively simple as compared with those of humid agri- 

 culture. Dry farming soils are usually rich, especially in the mineral elements ot 

 plant food, for the reason that they have been formed under arid or semi-arid conditions 

 which, instead of leaching out the soluble salts formed from the disintegration of rock 

 material, have caused an accumulation of these salts near the surface. The same cli- 

 matic conditions which have produced these fertile soils will tend to preserve these 

 salts under dry farming methods, which take from the soil but small quantities of 

 mineral plant food for the production of the moderate crops usually produced. The 



1 Dry Farming and Rural Homes (founded 1906), the official bulletin of the congress, is 

 published monthly at Lethbridge, Alberta. 



