42 AGRICULTURE 



inal home of great herds of cattle, horses and buffalo, 

 which ranged the endless prairies and mountain slopes. 

 For many years the eastern markets secured a large por- 

 tion of their beef and many of their horses from range- 

 fed stock. These immense ranges are now being cut up 

 into smaller farms, put under tillage, and farm stock kept 

 under more domestic conditions. 



Soil management in the West. So great is the vari- 

 ety of climate, soil and moisture in the West that it is im- 

 possible to treat all the conditions fully in any one text. 

 Only the more general and fundamental principles can be 

 stated. The local conditions will require study for each 

 particular crop and region. 



For convenience in the study of western agriculture we 

 may divide farm practise into three classes : ( 1 ) farming 

 under humid conditions, (2) under irrigation, and (3) 

 under dry-farming conditions. Farm practise under hu- 

 mid conditions in the West should not differ sufficiently in 

 method from good farm practise elsewhere to require 

 separate treatment. Farming under arid or semi-arid 

 conditions, however, requires special methods and very 

 careful management. This phase of agriculture is so 

 important in the West that the present chapter will be given 

 principally to its discussion. Hundreds of thousands of 

 acres are now being farmed and managed as dry-farming 

 land, while millions of acres are available for similar pur- 

 poses just as soon as good farming methods are employed, 

 suitable crops adapted, and good business methods devised 

 and applied to the new conditions. Every student will do 

 well to consider entering some club project, developing a 

 home garden or growing a field crop of one or more acres, 

 to earn money with which to buy some of this low-priced 

 semi-arid land of the West. By starting early in life one 



