DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



173 



MR. BOWMAN (Idaho): Gentlemen of the Convention: The Executive 

 Committee has directed me to appoint a committee of ten to solicit sub- 

 scriptions for affiliated and life membership. I will appoint on that com- 

 mittee Mr. L. A. Merrill, of Utah; W. H. Harting, of Wyoming; John 

 Henry Smith, of Utah; Isaac H. Grace, of Utah; Geo. A. Day, of Idaho; 

 Jno. T. Burns, of Colorado; Mr. Cranney, of Wyoming; O. A. Johanneson, 

 of Idaho; Mr. Peacock, of Colorado; R. A. Riepe, of Nevada. The gentle- 

 men named will please, in taking these subscriptions, be sure and get 

 the names and addresses correctly. I thank you. 



SECRETARY ROOT: I have here a communication, or rather a paper, 

 by Prof. W. H. Olin, which is too long to read. 



CHAIRMAN BURRELL: Without objection it will be placed in the 

 record. I hear none and it is so ordered. 



DRY FARMING IN EASTERN COLORADO. IN 1907. 



(By W. H. Olin.) 



"What are the facts on eastern Colorado crops for 1907?" is an import- 

 ant question and not an easy one to answer. The writer has spent many 

 weeks obtaining what he believes to be an authoritative answer. Many 

 local areas varying from less than a mile to possibly two to four miles 

 wide and several miles long, were struck with hail the latter part of June 

 to late in July, destroying crops in the path of the storm. These storms 

 were peculiarly local in origin yet more widely distributed over both irri- 

 gated and non-irrigated regions than in previous years. 



Cheyenne Wells — One of the oldest settlers, Mr. J. B. Robertson, told 

 us that 1907 was the driest year he had seen in Cheyenne County since he 

 came there twenty years ago. The rainfall from October, 1906, to Oc- 

 tober, 1907, at Cheyenne Wells was less than nine inches, the lowest re- 

 corded precipitation since a record has been taken at that station. In the 

 fall of 1906 Mr. Robertson seeded twenty acres of winter wheat on summer 

 cultured ground making a test amount of seed sown as follows: Twelve 

 acres seeded at rate of sixty pounds per acre yielded seventeen bushels per 

 acre. Four acres seeded at rate of forty-five pounds per acre yielded twen- 

 ty-one bushels per acre. Four acres seeded at rate of thirty-two pounds per 

 acre yielded twenty-one and one-eighth bushels per acre. 



The growing grain received just two and one hundredth inches of rain- 

 fall up to nine days before harvesting. 



This is one of the best object lessons in favor of good farming in dry 

 years which the writer has ever known. 



Mr. Richard Envin raised a very satisfactory crop of potatoes for any 

 year, supplying himself and neighbors with the choicest of spuds on this 

 "our dryest year in Cheyenne County." 



While some newcomers did not succeed in getting their ground in 

 crop condition for so dry a year and had "little to reap," there is abso- 

 lutely no foundation to the story that "sixty families had starved out in this 

 vicinity and were forced to leave the country." 



