DRY-FARMING 



Moisture and Fertility. 



In dry-farming, then, the two funda- 

 mental problems are the conservation of 

 moisture and the maintenance of soil 

 fertility. Moreover, it may be said in a 

 broad way that while the farmer of the 

 East is most interested in the question of 

 fertility, the farmer of the semi-arid 

 West is much more interested in the sav- 

 ing of moisture. Nor is the reason far to 

 seek. In the Eastern States there is a 

 plentiful supply of moisture, but the soils 

 of many farms have been exhausted by 

 injudicious cropping year after year and 

 the land will no longer yield a profitable 

 crop. The Eastern farmer is therefore 

 confronted with an impoverished and ill- 

 used soil. And so he tries to restore the 

 early fertility of his soil by the use of 

 commercial fertilizers,^ barn-yard, or 



^ The farmers of a single State, Maine, spent in one year 

 $5,000,000 on the purchase of commercial fertilizers. 



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