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DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



time to do this summer-fallowing is when the soil is in good plowing con- 

 dition, when it will not turn up in chunks. 



If it be the idea to raise corn, kafir, milo, or Jerusalem corn, or any of 

 the sorghums for grain, blank-listing to a depth of seven or eight inches 

 in the fall will nearly always put the ground in such condition as suffi- 

 ciently to store up moisture. In the spring when the ridges are broken it 

 affords an excellent seed-sprouting bed and, also, the ground will be suf- 

 ficiently firm. 



The Indians taught our ancestors how to grow corn, even fertilizing, 

 as we are told by Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Plantation, by put- 

 ting fish in the hills where the corn was planted. We still can do well to 

 imitate the agricultural Indians of the arid region. Probably hundreds of 

 years before the coming of the white man, the flood waters during the 

 rainy season were impounded in a primitive way and used for irrigation, 

 while the flood was on; the field being duly prepared with ditches, dams, 

 and laterals against the coming of high water. We all know that a good 

 soaking will last a growing crop for quite a time. 



The livestock man of the dry-farming region should give up the notion 

 that no farming can be done, and that all his country is good for is grazing. 

 He should also give up the idea that he cannot farm. While farming may 

 not be his principal business, he has the capacity, only choosing to think so, 

 to raise enough to very largely increase the carrying capacity of his range. 

 The carrying capacity of the range may not be measured by the very best 

 years; it ought not to be measured by the poorest years. The carrying 

 capacity of the average year, to say nothing of saving his stock the bad 

 year, can be largely increased by farming a proportionate acreage, at the 

 same time, the fact that the nutrient value of a crop grown on cultivated 

 soil is from five to ten times value of the nutrient value of the native 

 grasses. 



To the land owner, the increase in the value of the land developing its 

 agricultural possibilities will more than pay for the labor expended. 



Again, it is doubtless far better for the one handling livestock himself 

 to be independent on his range within his own limits of some adjoining 

 farmer, of whom he may expect to buy his products, for this nearby farmer 

 may change his system of farming and produce a crop that is not suitable 

 for livestock. 



The converse of this proposition is equally true. The farmer should 

 not attempt to place all of his dependence upon some range man buying 

 what he grows, whose notions and conditions may change with the passing 

 years, and should balance his activities with that proportionate number 

 of livestock that belongs with his farm. The day is fast passing when live- 

 stock men can drive out the farmer, and the farmer drive out the livestock 

 man. The day is upon us when the livestock man becomes a farmer and 

 the farmer becomes a livestock man. 



As pointed out in the beginning, diversity of products is the goal to 

 be reached. 



