176 



DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



dry as it was, were able to obtain 150 bushels of fine qnality. good mar- 

 ketable potatoes per acre. 



While crop yields have been seriously cut down, the writer cannot 

 find a single locality from Burlington to Denver where feed must be 

 shipped in because of crop failure. This fact the public needs to know. 



One farmer near Hugo, under date of December 9th, writes that he 

 has just finished threshing 3,000 bushels of grain for himself. Durum 

 wheat 3'ielded fourteen bushels, his oats twenty to twentj^-six bushels and 

 his white flint corn is hustling forty bushels per acre. He writes for 

 instructions for exhibiting feed and grain crops at Western Livestock 

 show. Considering the season, farmers in Hugo district have an ex- 

 cellent showing in all feed and forage crops, cane, millet, etc., giving 

 one and one-half to two or more tons per acre, while even pumpkins, 

 melons, squash, etc., were grown of good size and qualit}'. 



Walter Eastman of Galatea had a quarter acre which 3aelded close 

 to 2,000 melons, a field of corn with some stalks ten feet high and po- 

 tatoes yielding sixtj^ bushels per acre. Ramah sends her crop report for 

 the year as follows: Millet, eight to ten bushels seed where threshed, 

 one to two tons where stacked for feed; oats, ten to twenty-five bushels; 

 wheat, five to eighteen bushels; potatoes, 2,000 to 4,000 pounds per acre. 

 Short crop, but plenty to keep and to spare. Calhan, Elbert and Parker 

 all report lessened yields on account of meagre rainfall, but better prices 

 for nearly all farm produce. Wheat ran from four to twenty-seven bush- 

 els; oats, fifteen to fifty bushels; potatoes, 1,200 to 6,000 pounds per 

 acre, while jneld of corn and fodder was about the same as last year. 



Dover district reports two distinctive hailstorms, but those outside 

 the path of these storms report wheat seven to thirty bushels; oats, twelve 

 to twenty bushels; corn, one to two tons forage per acre; corn, for grain, 

 fifeen to thirty bushels per acre; potatoes, an indifferent crop to fifty 

 bushels per acre; cane, one and one-half to three tons per acre. One 

 farmer reports having raised four tons of squash in the Dover district 

 weighing from five to forty pounds each. 



In the eastern portion of Larimer and western portion of Weld 

 county is an upland region, where considerable fall and spring wheat is 

 grown. Yields of from five to thirty bushels are recorded. Near Wind- 

 sor one farmer. W. T. Metcalf, had 330 acres of winter wheat. 140 acres 

 of which was struck by hail, a total loss. He threshed from the rest 

 6,500 bushels of grain. He now has 500 acres in wdieat going into the 

 winter in good condition. 



Near Loveland some wheat gave a yield of forty-two bushels, 

 weighing sixty-two pounds per bushel, over a forty-acre field. Very 

 few fields yielded less than fifteen bushels. 



We have taken a hurried review of the entire field of eastern Colo- 

 rado. While many new settlers arrived late and did not understand 

 crop conditions and the dry year caused them to have crop failure in 

 some one line, the experience of their neighbors, who did understand 

 conditions, enabled them to get some feed crops to help tide them 



