296 DRY-FARMING 
and state governments have succeeded in discovering 
numerous subterranean sources‘of water in dry-farm 
districts. In addition, the development of small 
irrigation systems in the neighborhood of dry-farm 
districts is helping the cause of the live stock industry. 
At the present time, dry-farming and the live stock 
industry are rather far apart, though undoubtedly 
as the desert is conquered they will become more 
closely associated. The question concerning the 
best maintenance of soil-fertility remains the same; 
and the ideal way of maintaining fertility is to return 
to the soil as much as is possible of the plant-food 
taken from it by the crops, which can best be accom- 
plished by the development of the business of keep- 
ing live stock in connection with dry-farming. 
If live stock cannot be kept on a dry-farm, the 
most direct method of maintaining soil-fertility is 
by the application of commercial fertilizers. This 
practice is followed extensively in the Eastern states 
and in Europe. The large areas of dry-farms and 
the high prices of commercial fertilizers will make 
this method of manuring impracticable on dry-farms, 
and it may be dismissed from thought until such a 
day as conditions, especially with respect to price 
of nitrates and potash, are materially changed. 
Nitrogen, which is the most important plant-food 
that may be absent from dry-farm soils, may be 
secured by the proper use of leguminous crops. All 
the pod-bearing plants commonly cultivated, such as 
