48 BULLETIN 1001, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



An extension of the application of the law was soon made which 

 allowed entrymen who had taken up land under the 320-acre act and 

 had been unable to make a living on that area to enlarge their hold- 

 ings to 640 acres. It is probably correct to say that this extension of 

 the law has been beneficial to most of those concerned, because 320 

 acres is not enough in much of the area that can be .dry-farmed. 



Millions of acres have been taken that, though they will produce 

 certain crops (mostly forage) during favorable years, will not produce 

 these crops during the years of drought which occur at more or less 

 regular intervals. The area of land plowed for crops on a grazing 

 homestead reduces the grazing area of the farm by just so much, and 

 therefore reduces the number of animals that may be carried on the 

 grazing land alone. Yet these animals must furnish the income for 

 the years of crop failure. 



The grazing of stock on the native forage produced on the land is 

 an enterprise upon which the entryman must depend either part or 

 all of the time, and the possible output of salable animals becomes 

 very important. If the maximum number of animals that 640 acres 

 will carry is 25 and the land will not raise any crops, what can a 

 homesteader hope to get from his grazing homestead? With a 90 

 per cent increase (which is 10 per cent better than is to be expected) 

 and a 2 per cent loss (which is very light) and assuming that all his 

 cows are of breeding age he would have 21 salable animals at the end 

 of the year. Twenty-one animals sold at $40 per head (which is a 

 high price) would give him $840 as gross receipts from which he must 

 pay the expenses of the business and his living expenses. This esti- 

 mate is made for that type of business which brings the greatest 

 returns, and would be realized only under the most favorable circum- 

 stances; such circumstances could not be expected to occur regularly. 



This lower limit of productivity of the land, which is that originally 

 established for purposes of land classification, is believed, by many 

 who have considered the subject, to have allowed would-be settlers 

 to enter land which was too poor to support a family in reasonable 

 comfort on 640 acres. 



The statement is often made — and believed by many — that the 

 introduction of crop farming into a region increases the rainfall of 

 the region, or, as it is ordinarily worded " the rain follows the plow." 

 The records of the U. S. Weather Bureau demonstrate beyond ques- 

 tion that this is not true. Plowing the land frequently does diminish 

 the run-off, thereby improving the utilization of the water that falls, 

 but when the total amount of water that falls is too small for the 

 production of the crop, plowed land will produce nothing at all or 

 but a scanty growth of weeds. Normally such land, if it has not 

 been plowed, will produce a growth of native grasses or shrubs even 

 during the dry seasons to which it is frequently subjected, but when 



