108 SOILS 



of their fields, scarcely keeping down weeds, and 

 who complain about drought. 



The combination of tools sometimes used in dry 

 farming is remarkable. Frequently one 32-horse- 

 power traction engine will drag twelve 14-inch 

 plows, two corrugated iron rollers, two clod crushers, 

 besides harrows and seed drills, the whole making 

 a long procession, with unbroken land in front and 

 smooth and seeded land behind. Such an outfit 

 prepares and seeds about 35 acres a day. 



When the rainfall is very scanty it is necessary 

 for success in dry farming to summer-fallow the 

 land every other year. The object of the summer 

 fallow is to store water for the next crop. Excellent 

 tillage, together with packing the subsoil in some 

 cases, is the simple and easy secret of dry farming. 

 It is the application, in an almost perfect way, 

 of a principle that has been known, but usually 

 very imperfectly applied, for several hundred years. 



Crops Under Dry Farming. The crop grown 

 most largely under dry farming is Durum or 

 macaroni wheat. This was introduced into Amer- 

 ica from Russia by the United States Department 

 of Agriculture about ten years ago and has proved 

 a most valuable acquisition. In Kussia it has been 

 grown successfully for many years on the steppes, 

 where the rainfall is less than 10 inches. The 

 readiness with which this remarkable plant lends 

 itself to dry farming, and the wonderful increase 

 in its culture, is shown by the fact that the first 

 large crop of macaroni wheat in the United States 

 was harvested in 1901, while the crop of 1905 was 

 close to 30,000,000 bushels. Average crops are 

 15 to 25 bushels of wheat per acre in the arid region 

 regions, and 30 to 50 bushels in the semi-arid 

 regions. It thrives only in a very dry climate. 



