DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



203 



there is no grain to be seen there at all, the line of demarcation being 

 very clearly shown. 



The next slide represents the soil moisture conditions which were 

 observed in a moisture conservation plat of North Carolina, being our 

 provision for the moisture conservation plats at Amarillo during the past 

 3-ear. This diagram shows the moisture conditions in three different 

 plats, one of which was subsoiled, one of which was listed poorly, putting 

 it in the ground with this double-mold-board plow. I don't know whether 

 3'ou know what it is or not. The furrows are thrown out and the corn 

 planted in the bottom of the furrow and then the dirt gradually thrown 

 in as the corn grows. This was good cultivation and this was poor culti- 

 vation. You will notice here that the subsoil farming in this particular 

 case started out with more moisture and maintained better moisture supply 

 for nearly two months during development, and the good cultivation was 

 next as far as the amount of moisture was concerned, that the lis1»ed 

 ground, poorly taken care of, had the lowest per cent of moisture. I 

 can't tell you just what the moisture contents were. It will be shown at 

 the end of the diagram. You will note, however, that the exceptionally 

 dry weather of which I spoke at Amarillo, in spite of the best cultivating 

 methods which w^ere used, was too much for the corn, and the yield prac- 

 tically failed. This represents the acreage yield — onl}- three bushels per 

 acre. This lower curve here, the series of lines along the bottom here 

 represents the rainfall at Amarillo during this period. This would be two 

 inches up to this line, this would be four inches, six inches, eight inches, 

 ten, and so on. You see during the first four months we had only eight 

 inches of rain, up to this time, when we had a big rain, and then that 

 came all at once, as was represented on the slide where you saw the very 

 wet conditions. These rains here are of very little value. The}^ come in 

 such small quantities that they simply destroy the mulch that has been 

 formed and necessitate another cultivation. 



The next slide represents the moisture conditions under four other 

 plats of the farm. This farm is given six different treatments — in this 

 case spring plowing, fall plowing, listed corn, and last year's summer fal- 

 low. You will notice that in this case the fallowing, so far as moisture 

 conservation w^as concerned, was of very little value. Here is a fallow 

 that was maintained during the past year. The line is seen running 

 through. The plats all start together, showing that the fall plowed during 

 the preceding year showed very little difference between fne different 

 plats, and it seems, although it was cultivated and taken care of thor- 

 oughly during the whole season no doubt, that there was practically no 

 gain in moisture. 



The next slide represents the summer fallow. This represents the 

 subsoiled farm, and this represents the listed corn with four cultivations. 

 This was right when the corn was suffering most, before we had the 

 heavy rain. You will see that there was a marked difference in favor of 

 the subsoiling in the growth of the corn made, but the dry weather was 

 a little too much for it even with that treatment. 



