POWER IMPLEMENTS FOR DRY-FARMING 325 



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 iinpossil^le 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, 



