DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



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From M. A. Carleton 



Washington, D. C, October 13, 1914. 



R. H. Faxon, Secretary, 



Dry-Farming Congress, 

 Wichita, Kansas. 



Appreciate contents of your message, but other matters prevent my 

 going and preparation of paper. 



M. A. CARLETON, Cerealist, 

 United States Department of Agriculture. 



From Minister Motherwell 



Regina, Saskatchewan, September 14, 1914. 



W. M. Jardine, 



Wichita, Kansas. 

 My Dear Mr. Jardine: 



I am in reecipt of your favor of the 10th instant, and was pleased 

 to know you have everything in such good shape for the coming Congress 

 at Wichita. You can rest assured that if there was any possible chance 

 at all of my attending the Congress, I would be there. 



My work has been very heavy this summer, and so long as I can 

 get around, I stay with it. The Legislative session opens here tomorrow, 

 and as this is a special session to deal with unusual circumstances arising 

 out of conditions occasioned by the present European war, I can scarcely 

 venture to say just how long it will last, but it is scarcely possible the 

 session will be over in time for me to be with you on the 12th proximo. 

 Even if it were, my sciatica leaves me unfit to travel as it causes me a 

 good deal of difficulty to get around even here. 



It may be interesting for you to know 7 that in parts of this province 

 this year, much of the crop was a total failure because of drought — 

 where farmers were not familiar with dry-farming methods. In the very 

 worst districts I found that in the same section, one farmer would fail 

 so completely as to have nothing worth putting the binder into; while 

 his adjacent neighbor would have 25 bushels to the acre. 



At the College of Agriculture farm at Saskatoon, Dean Rutherford 

 was just telling me today that they had 25 bushels of No. 1 wheat weigh- 

 ing 65 pounds to the bushel on their summer-fallow T , and from the time 

 the seed was sown until it was in the stack, they had only 1.67 inches 

 precipitation. This is all the more remarkable when you know they had 

 only one rainfall that amounted to one-half inch, another one to .34 inches, 

 and all the rest scanty showers that possibly would not count more than 

 one-hundredth of an inch at one time. 



I think this is a wonderful tribute to what can be done by storing 

 moisture in the soil the previous year by early and improved methods of 

 tillage. 



In my own district I am sure that we did not have more than two 

 inches of rainfall from seeding to harvest; and only one rainfall reached 

 a depth of five inches in the ground; another one about three inches; while 



