412 DRY-FARMING 
After the harvest, however, every state reported 
that the crops were well up to the average wherever 
correct methods of culture had been employed. 
These well-authenticated records from true semi- 
arid districts, covering the two chief types of winter 
and summer precipitation, prove that the year of 
drouth, or the driest year in a twenty-year period, 
does not disturb agricultural conditions seriously in 
localities where the average annual precipitation is 
not too low, and where proper cultural methods are 
followed. That dry-farming is a system of agricul- 
tural practice which requires the application of high 
skill and intelligence is admitted; that it is precarious 
is denied. The year of drouth is ordinarily the year 
in which the man failed to do properly his share of the 
work 
