FACTORS OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 149 



two years' supply of water is accumulated and utilized in the 

 g -owing of a single crop. However, the farmer gets a crop from 

 only half his land each year. But where there is little bad 

 weather to interrupt his work, where the land is level and easily 

 worked, where he can use ample horse power, gang plows, and 

 efficient machinery, he can handle land enough to give him 

 almost as large a crop each year as the eastern farmer can get 

 where he grows a crop every year, but is so frequently inter- 

 rupted by bad weather and other hindrances as not to be able 

 to handle so much land. To be sure, this system of farming is 

 not likely to support so dense a population as can be supported 

 in regions of ample rainfall, but it is vastly better than allow- 

 ing the land to go to waste. In case of necessity this method 

 could be still further extended and a crop raised from each 

 parcel of land only once in three years. It is quite possible for 

 a farmer to make a good living in this way, where the land 

 lies well, is fertile, and is easily worked. 



There are many other elements in the general method of 

 dry farming which require somewhat specialized knowledge, so 

 that the man who. expects to follow this method must make a 

 special study of the problem in its many details. Deep plow- 

 ing, which tends to increase the capacity of the soil to absorb 

 the rainfall instead of allowing it to run off in the surface 

 streams ; increasing the proportion of humus or vegetable matter 

 in che soil, to increase its capacity to hold moisture ; subsoil pack- 

 ing ; and other special methods have to be studied and applied. 

 But it has been demonstrated that the farmer who will apply 

 these various methods scientifically can make money from some 

 of the lands which have hitherto been regarded as practically 

 worthless. Doubtless more will yet be learned about dry-farming 

 methods than we have hitherto dreamed of, and new crops will 

 be introduced which are capable of resisting drought, and thus 

 the tillable area of our great West will be materially increased. 



