378 DRY-FARMING 
published reports are the most valuable publications 
dealing with dry-land agriculture. Only simple 
justice is done when it is stated that the success of 
the Dry-farming Congress is due in a large measure 
to the untiring and intelligent efforts of John T. 
Burns, who is the permanent secretary of the Con- 
gress, and who was a member of the first executive 
committee. 
Nearly all the arid and semiarid states have 
organized. state dry-farming congresses. The first 
of these was the Utah Dry-farming Congress, organ- 
ized about two months after the first Congress held 
in Denver. The president is L. A. Merrill, one of 
the pioneer dry-farm investigators of the Rockies. 
Jethro Tull (see frontispiece) 
A sketch of the history of dry-farming would be 
incomplete without a mention of the life and work 
of Jethro Tull. The agricultural doctrines of this 
man, interpreted in the light of modern science, are 
those which underlie modern dry-farming. Jethro 
Tull was born in Berkshire, England, 1674, and 
died in 1741. He was a lawyer by profession, but 
his health was so poor that he could not practice his 
profession and therefore spent most of his life in the 
seclusion of a quiet farm. His life work was done in 
the face of great physical sufferings. In spite of 
physical infirmities, he produced a system of agricul- 
