92 



DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



volunteer and mix with other grains. It is, in some sections, coming to 

 be considered as a weed, and something to be avoided. Notwithstand- 

 ing these objections, rye has some valuable qualities. It can nearly always 

 be relied upon to produce a crop under conditions of drouth too severe 

 for wheat or any other grain. There are both spring and winter varieties 

 The spring varieties are especially valuable as a green manuring crop and 

 also for summer forage and pasturage. Winter varieties are useful for 

 the production of grain and forage. The feeding value of rye as forage 

 is almost equal to timothy, if cut at the proper time. When grown as a 

 forage there is no danger of its spreading or mixing with other grains. 

 The ability of rye to produce a strong foliage even under very dry con- 

 ditions makes it especially valuable as a dry farm forage crop. Its grain, 

 too, is valuable as a stock food. 



Wheat, the Principal Cereal. 



Thus we see that all of the cereals named occupy important places 

 in arid farming. Wheat, however, is the most widely used of the cereals 

 and for this reason the demand for it is always strong and its sale prac- 

 tically sure. The demand for the other crops, being more limited than 

 that for wheat, is liable to greater variation, and hence these grains will 

 never be as generally popular as wheat. From these considerations we 

 see that, though oats, barley, spelt, emmer, rye and corn are extremely 

 important, both as salable products and in rotations, wheat is, and probably 

 will remain, the great basic cereal of the Arid West, and it will receive 

 the greatest consideration here. 



The Arid Region. 



The section which we consider as more or less arid includes the 

 western half of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, the Panhandle 

 of Texas southward to the Gulf, and the region westward to the Sierra 

 Nevada mountains, thus including the greater part of the so-called Great 

 Plains area, the intermountain West and some vast areas in California, 

 Oregon and Washington. The annual precipitation in this territory varies 

 from 4 to 20 or 25 inches. Altitude and climatic and soil conditions are 

 extremely variable and determine to a greater or less extent the varieties 

 that can be grown and the methods that must be employed. 



The Great Wheat Groups. 



Several hundred varieties of wheat, more or less distinct, are grown 

 in this section. The great bulk of wheat production, however, falls into 

 four groups: 



1. The hard spring wheats including the durums. 



2. The hard winter wheats. 



3. The intermountain wheats (or semi-hard white winter varieties.) 



4. The Pacific wheats (or soft white winter wheats.) 



Each group characterizes a certain belt. These belts are, of course, 

 not sharply defined; but certain types of wheat predominate in each. 



