THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



15 



Personal Field Work. 



"The Alberta government is sending out men who are acquainted 

 more or less with dry farming operations and who are talking to the 

 people along those lines and along other lines of mixed farming. And 

 we find the people very glad to take hold of the work and glad to re- 

 ceirve any information we can give them, and we hope by the time we 

 have been with you people through this Congress that we shall have 

 a great deal of valuable information to take back to them. 



Rainfall Average. 



"We are operating under a rainfall of something near nineteen 

 inches as an average for the province. In some places it is more and 

 in some places it is less than that, but we find that in all parts of the 

 Province the dry farming system is useful and in some places necessary 

 in order to raise good crops. 



Crop Rotation — Summer Fallow. 



"In some places we can raise crops every year by rotating the crops 

 rightly, in other places we find that we can raise one crop in two 

 years by the right system of farming, and, in still other places, we thinly 

 it advisable for the farmer to raise one crop in two years by summer 

 fallow and there we use that altogether for cropping. We are learning 

 along these lines. 



Results From Methodical Work. 



"We have gotten far enough to see the advantages of dry farm- 

 ing and to know how to make use of it. Wo feel that dry farming is 

 good farming, and in places where we have plenty of moisture we can 

 increase our crops very much by using it. We feel that when there is 

 a time when we have more moisture than we need, the dry fanning 

 system is the best way to farm even then. 



"We have a soil similar to yours, and that is the reason we are so 

 interested in your work here and the experiments that you people are 

 carrying on. We have experiment stations that are doing some work, 

 but they have been only two or three years at the work and v^e cannot 

 rely so much upon them, as upon the work that has been done for a 

 number of years in the United States, so, by being located so similarly 

 to you people, we expect to follow and to pattern, as near as uossible, 

 after your systems until such time as we can improve upon them, 

 if that time ever comes. Now, I thank you again for the hearty 

 welcome you have extended the Canadian delegates, and I thank you 

 for the kind attention that you have given me." 



RESPONSE FROM SOUTH DAKOTA. 



Samuel H. Lea, State Engineer, Pierre, South Dakota, responded to 

 the address of welcome as follows: 



