DRY LANDS AND FORESTS 109 



to adopt 320 acres instead of the usual 160 

 acres or quarter-section as his unit. 



As previously stated, less than twenty per 

 cent, of the Great Plains and Great Basin area 

 of our West will ever come permanently under 

 the plow, and those farmers who will persist 

 and succeed against the adverse conditions will 

 be those who farm large areas by systems re- 

 quiring the least expenditure of labor. In the 

 beginning the settlers in the Far West dis- 

 covered that their returns did not depend upon 

 the amount of labor they expended. Once 

 they decided on the nature of their crops and 

 the system of cultivation their profits or losses 

 depended solely on whether the season's rain- 

 fall was above or below normal. 



"The people of this region are not shiftless," 

 says Mr. E. G. Montgomery, of the Lincoln 

 (Neb.) Experiment Station (Dry Farming 

 Congress, Manhattan, Kansas, June 26, 1907) , 

 "but are practical and optimistic and deserve 

 some credit for their ability to adapt their 

 methods of cultivation to a climate of this na- 

 ture and be able to succeed as well as they do. 

 The principle in most of the farming seems 

 to be to put as little expense as possible into 

 the farming of an acre of ground on the theory 



