THE CAMPBELL SYSTEM 



applied to the land. On wet, clayey 

 ground it may seriously injure the me- 

 chanical and physical texture of the soil. 

 The story of the origin of the Camp- 

 bell system 1 of dry-farming is as fol- 

 lows: In the year 1879 Mr. Campbell 

 migrated from New England and settled 

 in what was then known as the Territory 

 of Dakota since divided into the two 

 States of North and South Dakota. His 

 agricultural career was not startling, 

 merely the hard, grim struggle of the 

 prairie farmer; wheat-growing year in 

 and year out; alternate failure and suc- 

 cess, and always the fear of drought, the 

 blizzard, rust, hail, and frost. At that 

 time it was widely stated that the com- 

 mon failure of the wheat crop was due to 

 the exhaustion of the fertility of the soil 

 by the heavy crops of the first few years, 



1 The following account of this particular method of dry- 

 farming is taken from Campbell's Manual of Scientific 

 Soil Culture, an interesting but diffusely written volume. 



8 147 



