POWER IMPLEMENTS FOR DRY-FARMING 320 
except on the very large farms that are being estab- 
lished in the dry-farm territory. 
Gasoline engines are also being tried out, but up 
to date they have not shown themselves as possessing 
superior advantages over the steam engines. The 
two objections to them are the same as to the steam 
engine: first, their great weight, which compresses in 
a dangerous degree the topsoil and, secondly, the 
frequent breakages, which make the operation slow 
and expensive. 
Over a great part of the West, water power is 
very abundant and the suggestion has been made 
that the electric energy which can be developed by 
means of water power could be used in the cultural 
operations of the dry-farm. With the development 
of the trolley car which does not run on rails it would 
not seem impossible that in favorable localities elec- 
tricity could be made to serve the farmer in the 
mechanical tillage of the dry-farm. 
The substitution of steam and other energy for 
horse power is yet in the future. Undoubtedly, it 
will come, but only as improvements are made in the 
machines. There is here also a great field for being 
of high service to the farmers who are attempting to 
reclaim the great deserts of the world. As stated at 
the beginning of this chapter, dry-farming would 
probably have been an impossibility fifty or a hundred 
years ago because of the absence of suitable machin- 
ery. The future of dry-farming rests almost wholly, 
