320 DRY FARMING 



DRY FARMING PRACTICE IN NORTH DAKOTA 



By W. R. Porter, Superintendent of Demonstration 

 Farms for North Dakota. 



The term dry farming is usually eonsidered to include 

 those types of farming that are practised in areas having 

 less than twenty inches of annual rainfall. If this defini- 

 tion is- correct parts of the Red River Valley in North 

 Dakota and all the region west of the Red River Valley 

 come within the dry farming area. 



The ability of the soil to hold moisture is probably a 

 more important factor in the success or failure of a far- 

 mer than the amount of rainfall annually received. Thirty 

 inches of rainfall on a loam soil with a sand or gravel 

 subsoil will probably not be as effective in producing 

 crops as fifteen inches of rain on a loam soil having a 

 clay subsoil. The place for summer tillage under North 

 Dakota conditions is where the farms are too big to use 

 all the corn or handle all the potato^ that might be 

 produced if these crops were grown or where perennial 

 weeds such as the sow thistle, and quack grass, have got 

 a hold on the land. Summer tillage is the only method 

 we have of combating these weeds. 



263. Summer Tillage. — Land which is to be summer 

 tilled, particularly if infested with the above named 

 weeds, should be plowed about 3 inches deep the latter 

 part of October. This has two effects, it saves moisture 

 and exposes the weed roots to more or less winter killing. 

 The latter part of May or early in June this land should 

 be plowed five to six inches deep and after that it should 

 be cultivated at frequent intervals with the Spring Tooth 

 Duck Foot Cultivator. 



