4 2o DAIRY FARMING 



tilled crop alternates with untilled crops of grain gives better returns than alternate 

 cropping and summer tillage in many localities. The occasional plowing under of a 

 green manure crop in such a rotation has been found very useful in many instances. 

 From the above considerations we deduce the following general rules concerning 

 the practice of dry farming: 



(1) While some very successful dry farming has been done on heavy clay soils, 

 a sandy loam soil which is naturally receptive to precipitation, which can be made 

 sufficiently retentive by proper methods of tilling, through which soil water moves 

 freely, which yields up readily to the plant a large proportion of its water, and which 

 affords a favorable medium for an extensive root development, will usually give better 

 results. 



(2) In the selection of strains, varieties and species of crop plants, choose those 

 which have become adapted to semi-arid conditions, giving preference, other things 

 being equal, to the smaller and earlier maturing strains. 



(3) Practice thin seeding from one-quarter to one-half the amount commonly 

 used in humid regions. 



(4) Having selected crops which will grow and which can be profitably utilised, 

 work them into a rotation which will, so far as possible, allow an alternation of inter- 

 tilled crops with untilled crops, and will insure some return of organic matter to the 

 soil at frequent intervals. 



(5) Study the soil, the climate, and the crops, and adopt such methods of tillage 

 as will insure the most complete utilisation of the precipitation, bearing in mind that 

 the dry farmer is dealing with an ever-changing combination of factors, and that no 

 invariable rules or systems ever have, or ever can be, formulated that will be of any 

 assistance to him unless he learns by careful observation on his own farm to know the 

 problems involved, and can, as they arise from day to day, intelligently adapt avail- 

 able means to desired ends in their solution. 1 (ELLERY CHANNING CHILCOTT.) 



THE DAIRY INDUSTRY 2 



The most notable features in the recent development of the dairy industry, as exem- 

 plified especially in America, are as follows : the marvelous increase in the demand 

 for cream for ice cream manufacture: the revolutionary changes in methods of pas- 

 teurizing and handling milk for city distribution, together with the attention given 

 to milk problems by municipal authorities: the development of the centralised cream- 

 ery, receiving and handling hand-separator cream from a large territory as distinguished 

 from the cooperative creamery dependent upon a comparatively restricted com- 

 munity; the testing of pure bred dairy cows for yearly production under the super- 

 vision of state agricultural experiment stations; the organisation of cooperative as- 

 sociations for ascertaining the production and cost of feeding dairy cows, and the or- 

 ganisation of communities with a view to predominance of single dairy breed in that 

 community, with its advantage of large numbers of high class animals of one breed; 

 and lastly, a growing recognition of the impossibility of taxing fraud out of the sale of 

 oleomargarine, and an increasing demand for legislation requiring oleomargarine to 

 be sold on its own merits as such. 



Ice Cream. In the United States ice cream has changed from an occasional lux- 

 ury to being a common beverage or confection sold at every corner drug store, and 

 a regular dish on the public and private dinner table; and this has taken ice cream mak- 

 ing from the domain of the cook and the chef to the factory, where the cream and fla- 

 vouring material are mixed in great vats, then conducted by pipes to power driven 

 freezers, frozen by mechanically chilled brine and stored in hardening rooms held 



1 See the articles "Dry-Land Farming in the Great Plains Area" and "Some Misconcep- 

 tions Concerning Dry Farming," by E. C. Chilcott, in the Year-Books for 1907 and 1911 of 

 the U.S. Department of Agriculture; A Study of Cultivation Methods and Crop Rotation for 

 the Great Plains Area (Bulletin No. 187, Bureau of Plant Industry, 1910), by the same au- 

 thor; and J. A. Widstoe, Dry Farming (1911). 



2 See E. B. vii, 737 et seq. 



