ARID AGRICULTURE. 21 



I 11 i ted States. The air is dry ? rarified, cool, 

 free from poisonous gases and germs, invigorat- 

 ing and generally moving. There are few cloudy 

 days. The sun shines over sixty per cent, of his 

 rime on the people. In Xew York state, for 

 comparison, the glorious sun shows his face only 

 sixteen per cent, of his time, and the quality of 

 the shine is stingy at that Disease germs are 

 things of darkness and dampness. Dry sun- 

 shine is the most deadly thing to disease germs 

 known in the world. 



Thermometers for recording temperatures in 

 the arid country are always at work. The tem- 

 perature is not stationary, but changes more each 

 twenty-four hours than it does anywhere else. 

 Dry air neither burns nor scalds, and it does not 

 carry sultry heat into shady places nor into the 

 night. The nii>lits arc cool even where the cli- 

 mate is subtropical. There is no sunstroke or 

 prostration with heat. Farm animals are com- 

 paratively free from Disease. Such climate car- 

 ries with it health, comfort and happiness to the 

 people. If a tubercular patient does not get 

 well in this climate, there is some reason that 

 he does not other than the presence of the diWase 

 germ. 



The arid region covers a large section of the 

 earth's surface. The dry climate varies from 

 the subtropical in the South and \Ve-t to the 

 frigid of the mountain top. The tops of the 

 higher mountains should not be classed as arid. 



