10 DRY-FARMING 
season; the regulation of the amount of water drawn 
from the soil by plants; the choice of crops suitable 
for growth under arid conditions; the application 
of suitable crop treatments, and the disposal of dry- 
farm products, based upon the superior composition 
of plants grown with small amounts of water. 
Around these fundamental problems cluster a host 
of minor, though also important, problems. When 
the methods of dry-farming are understood and 
practiced, the practice is always successful; but 
it requires more intelligence, more implicit obedience 
to nature’s laws, and greater vigilance, than farming 
in countries of abundant rainfall. 
The chapters that follow will deal almost wholly : 
with the problems above outlined as they present 
themselves in the construction of a rational system 
of farming without irrigation in countries of limited 
rainfall. 
