402 DRY-FARMING 
historical time; neither are there protracted dry 
periods followed by protracted wet periods. The 
fact is, dry and wet:years alternate. A succession of 
somewhat wet. years may alternate with a succession 
of somewhat dry years, but the average precipitation 
from decade to decade is very nearly the same. 
True, there will always be a dry year, that is, the 
driest year of a series of years, and this is the sup- 
posedly fearful and fateful year of drouth. The busi- 
ness of the dry-farmer is always to farm so as to be 
prepared for this driest year whenever it comes. If 
this be done, the farmer will always have a crop: in 
the wet years his crop will be large; in the driest year 
it will be sufficient to sustain him. 
So persistent is the half-expressed fear that this 
driest year makes it impossible to rely upon dry- 
farming as a permanent system of agriculture that a 
search has been made for reliable long records of the 
production of crops in arid and semiarid regions. 
Public statements have been made by many perfectly 
reliable men to the effect that crops have been pro- 
duced in diverse sections over long periods of years, 
some as long as thirty-five or forty years, without one | 
failure having occurred. Most of these statements, — 
however, have been general in their nature and not 
accompanied by the exact yields from year to year. 
Only three satisfactory records have been found in a 
somewhat careful search. Others no doubt exist. 
