SEMIARID AREAS 31 
70,000,000 acres of desert-like land; that is, land 
which does not naturally support plants suitable 
for forage. This area is about one third of the lands 
which, so far as known, at present receive less than 
10 inches of rainfall, or only about 6 per cent of the 
total dry-farming territory. 
In any case, the semiarid area is at present most 
vitally interested in dry-farming. The sub-humid 
area need seldom suffer from drouth, if ordinary 
well-known methods are employed; the arid area, 
receiving less than 10 inches of rainfall, in all proba- 
bility, can be reclaimed without irrigation only by 
the development of more suitable methods than are 
known to-day. The semiarid area, which is the 
special consideration of’ present-day dry-farming, 
represents an area of over 725,000,000 acres of land. 
Moreover, it must be remarked that the full cer- 
tainty of crops in the sub-humid regions will come 
only with the adoption of dry-farming methods; 
and that results already obtained on the edge of 
the ‘‘deserts” lead to the belief that a large portion 
of the area receiving less than 10 inches of rainfall, 
annually, will ultimately be reclaimed without irri- 
gation. 
Naturally, not the whole of the vast area just 
discussed could be brought under cultivation, even 
under the most favorable conditions of rainfall. A 
very large portion of the territory in question is 
mountainous and often of so rugged a nature that to 
