ARID AGRICULTURE. 15 



the relation of the growing season and the crop, 

 the effect of soil aeration, the making available 

 of plant food, the acclimatization and adaptation 

 of plants, the causes of variations, the value of 

 heredity and pedigree in plants, as well as in 

 animals, and a host of other farm problems, are 

 being elucidated and solved through necessity in 

 the building up of arid agriculture. Our les- 

 sons, in so far as they teach how and why, are 

 useful to all. 



MUST To meet with greatest success the Eastern 



UNLEARN farmer who comes West must unlearn what he 

 LEARN THE knows about farming. The Western farmer 

 NEW must learn farming anew. The new settler 



would make fewer mistakes if he could leave 

 behind, with the dust of the farm which he 

 shakes from his feet, the memories of his old 

 farm practices. Many of the first farmers in 

 the West, and especially those who attempt to 

 dry farm, do not succeed. It takes time to learn 

 a new business or the conditions of a new coun- 

 try. It took fifteen years for the farmers of 

 Idaho, Washington and Oregon to learn how to 

 produce wheat with their present success. It 

 took as long for the farmers of Colorado to learn 

 potato culture. As many more years were con- 

 sumed in working out high altitude agriculture 

 and the use of alfalfa and field peas in these loca- 

 tions. Even now, after forty years of successful 

 dry farming in parts of the West, there are those 



