DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



137 



cess. I regret exceedingly that I have not been able to be with you to 

 participate in the great work of the Congress. Boards of Equalization and 

 assessors of the various counties of Idaho have been in session in this 

 city for several days. My duties to the state demand my close attention 

 of this meeting of the Board of Equalization. My heart is with the Con- 

 ^>Tess in its great work and I have only regrets that I have not been 

 rible to be with you to give ray assistance to the question which means 

 so much for the settlement and development of a large portion of our 

 country. F. R. Gooding, Gvernor." (Applause.) 



I have a letter here of the 8th, addressed to President Harris. I 

 think I had better read it. "I much appreciate your kind invitation to 

 attend the Second Session of the Trans-Missouri Dry Farming Congress, 

 which meets in your city January 22-25, 1908, for I take a great interest 

 in the subjects that will be discussed at the Congress; but at the time 

 mentioned I shall be busy in attendance on the committees in Congress 

 with matters connected with the work of the Weather Bureau during the 

 coming year. However, I assure you of my desire to have the Weather 

 Bureau co-operate with you, and to that end I have authorized Mr. Rob- 

 erts, the Section Director of the Climatological Service of North Dakota, 

 to attend the Congress. I shall also authorize Mr. Hyatt, who has charge 

 of the station in your city, to be in attendance; and it is probable that other 

 officials of the Bureau may attend. W. L. Moore, Chief of U. S. Weather 

 Bureau." (Applause.) 



I have here a letter from W. X. Sudduth, Director of the Broadview 

 Experiment Station, Billings, Montana, too long to read. 



CHAIRMAN BURRELL: Without objection this communication 

 will be allowed to go into the record. The chair hears none and it is so 

 ordered. 



RESULTS OBTAINED AT BROADVIEW EXPERIMENT STATION, 

 BILLINGS, MONTANA, FOR THE YEAR 1907. 



While the past year has had fully the average amount of precipita- 

 tion yet it has not been a good growing year. It was cold and dry during 

 the month of April with only .29 inches rainfall. The month of May 

 showed a very considerable increase in precipitation, being 3.61 inches, 

 but the weather still continued cold and backward with frosts during May 

 and June. The precipitation for June at Broadview was 4.32 inches but 

 at Billings it fell short of the corresponding month in 1906 by 1.21 inches. 

 All crops were late starting, the seed lying in the ground so long that 

 much of the vitality of the young plant had been sapped before it had 

 fairly started. The precipitation for the year beginning November 1st, 

 1906, and ending October 31st, 1907, at Broadview has been 16.4 inches, 

 the larger portion, which is the case every year, falling during May and 

 June. The deficiency during April, however, was marked, as shown above. 



Notwithstanding the adverse conditions with which we had to con- 

 tend the crop yield has been fairly good and will exceed the yields re- 

 ported from Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Nebraska. 



