DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



129 



to come, if the great resources of this region are to be developed to the 

 highest possible degree. 



CHAIRMAN BURRELL: The next on the program is ''The Control 

 of Moisture on the Dry Farm," by Prof. Alfred Atkinson, of the Montana 

 Experiment Station, Bozeman, Montana. Professor Atkinson, ladies and 

 gentlemen. (Applause.) 



PROF. ALFRED ATKINSON: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Con- 

 gress: The question which I have to deal with this morning has as its 

 basis an established basic difference between arid farming and humid 

 farming. The only reason we have come here to consider this proposition 

 of dry farming is because we haven't moisture enough to do it on a humid 

 basis. Humid farming has been demonstrated and has been accepted 

 as a success. And the different features of that are considered, as a 

 general proposition, to be long past the experimental stage. So that the 

 subject of controlling moisture on the dry farm is one of prime import- 

 ance. 



The subject of the adoption of different methods and systems of farm 

 management, and many other things, are important to the problem of 

 conserving the moisture, in order that we can produce that one thing 

 that is lacking on the dry farm. It seems to me this is very nearly of 

 prime importance. We have fertile soil; we have good conditions of 

 temperature and other growing conditions; and the only one that is not 

 present in abundance is our moisture. Experience and investigation, as 

 far as it has been carried on, would indicate that certain methods in 

 certain localities are superior for the control of moisture. In the dis- 

 cussions that have taken place, and in the papers that have been read, 

 we find that the practical farmers, those who have been looking into 

 the subject, have discovered that methods which will apply in one locality 

 will not necessarily apply in a different locality. We find, for instance, 

 that in some places the proposition of summer fallowing the land to 

 accumulate moisture is decidedly the most economical. The experience 

 of farmers and those who have been looking into the subject indicates 

 that this probably will not apply in other localities. So in speaking of 

 the general proposition of conserving soil moisture we must know in the 

 beginning that we cannot lay down any rules which will apply in every 

 locality. 



We know some investigators have taken up the problem to determine 

 the relation between the amount of rainfall and the possible crop that 

 might be produced; that is, the amount of moisture it takes to produce 

 a certain number of bushels of a certain crop. I believe, gentlemen, that 

 this will vary very greatly in different localities. The experiments con- 

 ducted in the humid west indicate that it takes a larger amount of 

 water in the arid west than it would in the humid central west or the 

 east. This past year our Montana Experiment Station has been doing 

 a little work in that connection, and I would just say that our results 

 are not entirely concordant with results gained so far in other states. 



