DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



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eight}^ acres the first week. We got in the next week another eighty acres 

 and the following week another eighty acres, and I believe the land was in 

 just about the same condition in the main — at least they were a good deal 

 the same. The result of that crop was 28 bushels per acre on the first 

 eighty, on the second we got 24 bushels and on the third we got 20 bushels. 

 That was a sticker. After that crop was harvested I never said anything 

 more about a drill but early in April my brother said, "We'4 better get 

 another drill, hadn't we?" I told him I didn't know as it was necessary 

 but he could suit himself about it. "Well," he says, "you had better order 

 another drill." We ordered another drill. (Laughter.) 



That is the condition not onl}' in dry farming but in irrigation farming 

 as well. 



AVe have used this method of summer fallowing every other year on 

 our irrigated farms, and I am not convinced it is a wrong thing on the 

 irrigated farm, because our farm that has been farme.d ever since I have 

 been big enough to reach a plow handle, is producing better crops today 

 than it has ever done. And I have learned by practical experience that 

 plowing and cultivating in the proper time and proper season gives the 

 very best results of anything we know about. Of course I would like to 

 get better methods, but I am perfectly satisfied with the methods we are 

 asing. We are successful, and perhaps successful enough. And I believt 

 some of these big stories about the success that can be accomplished in 

 dry farming don't alwa3'S pan out that way when it comes stock-taking time. 

 Of course a man can start out in the morning and plow so much — plow 

 so many acres today, and it has cost him so much to plow an acre of land. 

 Well, it doesn't cost very much, but when he comes down the next spring 

 and takes stock there is a thousand and one incidental expenses, and it 

 don't figure out just that wa}^ and he finds out he is not making fift}^ or 

 a hundred per cent profit on his investment, but it is reduced to fifteen 

 or twenty. If I can get twenty per cent on dry farming I am satisfied. Of 

 course I am better satisfied if I can get more, but I won't qivt it because 

 I am only getting fifteen or twenty. 



I will just give 3^ou a little statement, as I have it, of the facts that 

 come to me in regard to the cost of cultivating, and I do it from this point 

 of view: That is, our horses, harness, plows and all of the implements 

 that we have I call it capital stock, and it is a part of the farm, and I am 

 hiring so many men, with four horses and a plow to do our work. But 

 I claim this, that the cost to us is what our horses eat, what our men cost 

 us, and what the wear and tear is on our implements, so that the cost would 

 not be over sixty per cent of what it would be if we were hiring men with 

 their implements to come and work for us. We have this advantage when 

 we have our own horses and our own implements, if I tell the boys to 

 plow eight, nine or ten 'inches deep they plow that way, and if you hire 

 men to do it unless 3^ou are over every plow you have got on the place 

 they may plow nine inches deep, and they may plow four inches 

 deep, so that when you come to drilling your land in you 

 find that it is not plowed at a uniform depth, and the result is 



