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DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



is scarcely less fertile than in eastern Kansas where nine-tenths of the 

 area is cultivated. The great bulk of this uncultivated land can probably 

 be used profitably by dry-farming. That the people are coming to realize 

 this is shown by the rapid increase in the amount of improved land in 

 that section. The land under cultivation in these two tiers of counties 

 increased two and one-half times between 1900 and 1910; it has increased 

 much since 1910. 



The same conditions appear in large parts in Nebraska and the 

 Dakotas; in scores of counties at present only from one-twentieth to one- 

 fourth of the land is under cultivation. In the four western tiers of 

 counties in Nebraska the land under the plow in 1910, although still rela- 

 tively small, was three times as great as in 1900. Millions of acres in 

 these border states of the semiarid region have been added to the crop- 

 land of the world during the past decade. 



The great area of plains lying between the states we have been con- 

 sidering and the Rocky Mountains is perhaps, a little drier than western 

 Kansas or Nebraska, but otherwise it is very similar. In this section 

 relatively much less land is under cultivation than even in the border 

 counties of the adjoining states to the east. Not millions, but tens of 

 millions of acres of fertile land east of the Rockies await the skill of the 

 dry-farm expert and the irrigator. 



Still further west the conditions are more varied. Some of the great 

 region between the Rocky Mountains and the coast is too mountainous 

 and rocky ever to be cultivated; some, though fertile, has not enough rain- 

 fall for dry-farming, and is not even capable of irrigation. But on the 

 whole there is a great deal of land in this section which can be cultivated 

 either by dry-farming or irrigation. Of course there are considerable areas 

 near the Pacific coast where moisture is abundant. 



One can scarcely expect dry-farming methods to produce as much 

 both per acre and per man as farming where moisture is abundant. It is 

 the task of science to reduce the disparity to a minimum, particularly the 

 disparity in production per man. We can afford to use our semiarid 

 land somewhat lavishly; any use is better than none at all. But we cannot 

 afford, on our drier lands any more than on those in more humid regions, 

 to see a decline in the quantity of product turned out by each worker. 

 Everlasting study and improvement of methods must accompany the exten- 

 sion of dry farming. 



One of the great problems before the American people is the effective 

 utilization of the mighty West. When we remember that in the Mountain 

 and Pacific divisions, which together comprise two-fifths of the United 

 States, less than one-sixth of the area is occupied by farms and less than 

 one-twentieth under cultivation, we realize the magnitude of the problem. 

 When the population of the eastern half of the country approximates in 

 density that of western Europe, as some day it doubtless will, the teem- 

 ing millions will stretch their hands to the west for relief from the severe 

 pressure of food supply. Evidently we must take time by the forelock. 



