DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



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been determined, too, that it stands out ahead in protein quantity, or very 

 near the head in protein contents. This variety is the Turkey wheat. The 

 Turkey wheat, in a great many of the wheat-producing sections of the 

 United States and Canada, is considered the standard milling wheat. An- 

 other variety that stands out with the Turkey in yield, but which, I am 

 sorry to say, is- low in protein contents, is Koffoid wheat. Koffoid wheat 

 is a soft, white, local wheat, grown almost locally in Juab County. It has 

 a stiff straw and has the quality of not shelling easily. It has the good 

 quality of resisting disease and frost and blight, but the one thing against 

 it is that it does not have the high protein contents which to a certain 

 extent determines the value of a wheat. There are many other varieties 

 that are grown — a great many good varieties and some bad, poor va- 

 rieties. I believe that we make the mistake that we grow too many va- 

 rieties of wheat, and I believe the sooner we get down and grow one or 

 iwo varieties of a uniform quality, that is particularly adapted to our par- 

 ticular section, the more prosperous will the arid farmer become. When 

 this has been accomplished then a particular section of the country will 

 become known and become recognized for a particular variety or kind of 

 wheat. This variety will then be demanded by the trade and will be 

 sought after and the highest possible market price will be paid, because 

 if the same variety of wheat is grown on all of the farms in a particular 

 section of the country it can be taken out in trainload lots. I believe as 

 long as we raise any old kind of wheat the highest market price cannot 

 be secured. I bel-ieve the grpat watchword of the arid farmer will be "Co- 

 operation in production and uniformity in product." Co-operation to 

 cheapen the cost of production and uniformity to secure the highest possi- 

 ble market price. 



For the successful growing of wheat on the largest number of acres 

 in the Great Basin it is necessary that we have a more thorough survey 

 made of not only the character of the surface soil of this region but 

 more particularly of the under soil, as to its uniformity, as to its porosity, 

 as to its depth and water-holding capacity. When this is done we can de- 

 termine more fully what particular sections are best adapted to the growing 

 df arid crops. 



There is one most vital problem which lies as yet unsolved by the 

 experimenter as well as the arid farmers in this region, and that is the 

 study of the millions of living organisms which we have found in the soil — 

 the bacteria, which do so much in rendering the soil fertile or in making 

 it capable of producing profitable crops. We have studied for a number 

 of years the dead mineral elements in the soil and know pretty well how 

 they work, how they act and how they are acted upon by the crops, but 

 as yet we have done very little in studying the living side — in studying the 

 bacteria, as to just what they do in the soil. There is no question to my 

 mind but that the mineral elements and the moisture are great questions, 

 and that they go far on arid lands to determine the productive ability of 

 an arid soil to grow wheat. But they are only one side of the problem 

 of soil fertility in arid regions. The other side, which has not as yet 



