52 DRY LAND FARMING 



The Great Basin country includes Nevada and the 

 western half of Utah, and a small portion of the states 

 of southern Oregon, Idaho and California. The char- 

 acteristic -feature of this region is that its rivers drain 

 into salt lakes or dry sinks. 



Within it are many valleys made up of nearly level 

 land. This basin was at one time a great lake which 

 drained into the Columbia river. The chief cereal pro- 

 duction of this area is .wheat, but it will also grow, with 

 much success, corn, the sorghums and certain fruits, in- 

 cluding grapes. In some parts of this basin dry farming 

 has been conducted for 40 to 50 years. In many areas, 

 especially in Nevada, the rainfall is even less than 10 

 inches per year. According to Hillgard, dry farming has 

 been practised more or less since 1878, and Olin states 

 that dry farming methods were practised as early as 

 1861. 



The Colorado and Rio Grande river basins include 

 the western part of New Mexico and Colorado, and the 

 southwestern part of Texas. In those basins are consid- 

 erable areas that are even now being successfully farmed 

 on the dry farming plan. These will doubtless be greatly 

 increased in the near future, notwithstanding the dry- 

 ness of the climate. The chief of the dry farm products 

 grown at the present time are wheat, corn and the sor- 

 ghums, broom corn, millet and beans. 



Precipitation in the various states. Below is a state- 

 ment (1) of the average annual precipitation in the sev- 

 eral states that lie within the arid and semi-arid areas, 

 in whole or in part, from all the stations reporting prior 

 to 1909, (2) of the maximum and minimum precipitation 

 in each, and (3) a reference in a general way to the area 

 or areas within each state with an annual rainfall of 20 

 inches and over that amount, less than 15 inches and 

 between 15 and 20 inches. The information is thus based 

 on data furnished in Bulletin No. 188 issued by the 



