DRY LANDS AND FORESTS 111 



by extensive methods wheat fields covering 

 whole townships are better business than wheat 

 fields of forty, eighty, or one hundred and sixty 

 acres. In response to this movement the Far 

 West has produced its own peculiar type of 

 machinery. Machines which "head" the grain 

 (leaving the straw standing), thresh it, win- 

 now it and pack and deliver it in bags at one 

 operation in the field have come into general 

 use wherever the acreage justifies the expense, 

 and gasoline tractors which at once plow, har- 

 row, seed and cover (with electric searchlights 

 which light the task for twenty-four hours a 

 day during the seeding time) are no longer 

 curiosities to the broad-gauge farmers of the 

 Great Plains. 



The soil itself is intensely fertile and re- 

 sponds sensationally to favorable seasons of 

 rainfall. Witness, in 1907, spring-plowed land 

 at the experiment station at Edgeley, N". D., 

 produced 4 bushels of wheat an acre with 7 

 inches of rain during the growing season; in 



1908, 13 bushels with 9 inches of rain, and in 



1909, with 11 inches of rain, the yield was 28 

 bushels. The elements of gamble are always 

 present. A normal rainfall in many districts 

 produces returns sufficient to make amends for 



