112 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



several bad seasons and pay handsomely out 

 of balance for the bounteous season. Five 

 years of drought may depopulate vast town- 

 ships whither high hopes had led an army of 

 settlers, and five years of normal precipita- 

 tion are just as apt to transform the humble 

 "nester" into a capitalist far beyond the dreams 

 of his more-favored prairie brother. Never- 

 theless, the capital required to bridge the un- 

 certainty of the heavens tends toward a more 

 and more extensive scale of cultivation. 



For the small farmer who must be content 

 with random cultivation of his 320 acre home- 

 stead, it is evident that something more ma- 

 terial than the possibility of one crop every 

 two or three years must be held out as en- 

 couragement. Rainfall does not follow the 

 plow except in the poetry of forlorn hope, and 

 since there is no way of bringing the optimum 

 amount of water to this otherwise fertile land, 

 the only solution of the problem lies in the 

 introduction of drought - resisting cereals, 

 grasses and fruits. 



Ths search for, and acclimatization of 

 drought-resistant crops has, in fact, consti- 

 tuted the most important work of the Depart- 



