CHAPTER XVII 
THE HISTORY OF DRY-FARMING 
THE great nations of antiquity lived and prospered 
in arid and semiarid countries. In the more or less 
rainless regions of China, Mesopotamia, Palestine, 
Egypt, Mexico, and Peru, the greatest cities and the 
mightiest peoples flourished in ancient days. Of 
the great civilizations of’ history only that of Europe 
has rooted in a humid climate. As Hilgard has 
suggested, history teaches that a high civilization 
goes hand in hand with a soil that thirsts for water. 
To-day, current events point to the arid and semi- 
arid regions as the chief dependence of our modern 
civilization. 
In view of these facts it may be inferred that dry- 
farming is an ancient practice. It is improbable that 
intelligent men and women could live in Mesopo- 
tamia, for example, for thousands of years without 
discovering methods whereby the fertile soils could 
be made to produce crops in a small degree at least 
without irrigation. True, the low development of 
implements for soil culture makes it fairly certain 
that dry-farming in those days was practiced only 
with infinite labor and patience; and that the great 
ancient nations found it much easier to construct 
351 
