38 



In this valley the only special implements which I noticed were 

 a lucerne renovator and a Henderson smoothing disc harrow. The 

 renovator is used for cleaning lucerne fields, and is useful in splitting the 

 crown of the plant and so making the crops stool oat better. The smooth- 

 ing disc is a useful implement for making a fine mulch. The Superior 

 drill is widely used. 



In the further part of the Cache Valley the wheat was looking even 

 better, and mile after mile of green fields mixed and mingled with the 

 fallow lands. Last season the wheat crop was heavy, and averaged 45- 

 bushels per acre over the whole valley. Rotation has not been practised 

 in this region. I was much struck with the cleanness of the wheat fields., 

 and, with the exception of bunches of volunteer wheat from the previous 

 season, few or no weeds could be seen. The dry-farmer in the Cache 

 Valley is therefore in a happy position of being largely free from weeds 

 and rusts. .1 was much interested in, and have never seen before, so much 

 d^-land lucerne. It is sown at the rate of 8 lbs. per acre, and with, 

 this thin seeding there is a tendency for it to grow in clumps ; thus, in 

 looking over a field of dry-land lucerne, it seems to be growing in isolated 

 bunches. Later, however, these clumps stool out, and tne whole field 

 becomes a vivid luxuriant green. Should it become weedy the disc harrow 

 or lucerne renovator is run over it, and that is all the treatment it ever 

 gets. The dry-farmer of the Cache Valley does not believe much in the 

 practice of green manuring, because, should he wish to renovate his soil^ 

 he would prefer to feed his stock on these wheat lands, and obtain natural 

 manure, because it decomposes more readily than the green manure- 

 Besides, the capillary rise of moisture is not broken, as sometimes happens 

 where an undecomposed mass of matter is left in the soil. Furthermore.. 

 the dry-farmer here does not believe in the Campbell method of sub- 

 surface packing. Campbell states that the ploughed stubble should be 

 packed, but in Utah it has been found that fail ploughing produces a 

 sufficient degree of packing. And the land, by the spring-time, is nice 

 and mellow, the stubble having largely decomposed. Some native grasses, 

 such as bunch grass, blue grass, and wheat grass, are regarded as indi- 

 cators of good dry-land. Here in the Cache Valley dry-farming^ Jias never 

 been a mere theory, but an actual fact, and, what is more important, a. 

 most profitable practice for the last forty years. 



The Dry-farms of Montana. — After bidding Professor Hogenson 

 good-bye, I left for Butte, Montana, that same afternoon. Traversing the 

 State of Idaho I arrived at Butte — 400 miles to the north — the following 

 morning. Butte is the most important town in Montana, but on a raw., 

 cold morning, it certainly looked a forbidding mining camp. It was now- 

 time to begin my long eastward journey, and I reached Bozeman, Mon- 

 tana, at 1.35 p.m. the same day. Here the- State Agricultural College is 

 located, while the State University is situated at Missoula. In passing I 

 may remark that this seems to me another unfortunate example of the 

 divorcing of the Agricultural College from the State University. This 

 is also seen in Kansas, Colorado, and Utah.* 



The Agricultural College of Montana is finely situated, with a back- 

 ground of majestic snow-capped mountains. Over 500 students 



* Examples of the benefit of union of State College with State University are to be- 

 strikingly seen in the ease of the three greatest agricultural colleges in America, viz.. Cornell., 

 Wisconsin, and Minnesota. 



