352 



DRY-FARMING 



great irrigation systems which would make crops 

 certain with a minimum of soil tillage, than so thor- 

 oughly to till the soil with imperfect implements 

 as to produce certain yields without irrigation. Thus 

 is explained the fact that the historians of antiquity 



Fig. 96. The last of the breast plows. Modern machinery has made 

 dry-farming possible. 



speak at length of the wonderful irrigation systems, 

 but refer to other forms of agriculture in a most 

 casual manner, ^\^lile the absence of agricultural 

 machinery makes it very (.loul^tful whether dry- 

 farming was practiced extensively in olden days, yet 

 there can be little doubt of the high anticiuity of the 

 practice. 



Kearney quotes Tunis as an example of the pos- 

 sible extent of dry-farming in early historical days. 

 Tunis is under an average rainfall of about nine 

 inches, and there are no evidences of irrigation having 

 been practiced there, yet at El Djem are the ruins 



