54 



THIRD ANNUAL SESSIONS 



successful experience is the history of every dry farmer who has scien- 

 tifi'cally worked any of the land in my section of the country. 



The Reeves Dry Farm. 



"I have had occasion to make quite a study of the farm of J. F. 

 Reeves, only twenty miles north of El Paso, in west Texas, situated on 

 the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad at Newman, right on the border 

 of Texas and New Mexico. He purchased his land from the Texas & 

 Pacific Railroad, the land being a part of a grant made by the state 

 of Texas when the road penetrated the 'Great American Desert' when 

 there were no inhabitants and subsidies were necessary. He purchased 

 this land at $5 an acre and the first year he planted about 70 acres in 

 crops and not an acre was a failure. And it was his first year off a 

 black land farm in Texas where it usually rained enough to float off his 

 farming tools. On his dry farm he raised two acres of watermelons that 

 averaged from 20 to 35 pounds in weight, and marketed them in October 

 after the other Texas melons had disappeared from the market, and they 

 netted him $100 an acre. His milo maize, kaffir corn, sorghum, Mexican 

 brown beans, black-eyed peas, onions, pumpkins and other crops were as 

 successful as his melons. The beans and peas grew as high as a man's 

 knee, and the pods were long and well matured. The same can be 

 said of the forage, and he was selling roasting ears in El Paso in Octo- 

 ber, when the rest of the state was shipping its shelled corn to the 

 mill. 



Precipitation Reports. 



"And he did all of this on less than eight inches of rain! The win- 

 ter was unusually dry, and he had almost given up hope when the spring 

 also came without rain, for as a general thing that section of the coun- 

 try is blessed with some rain in spring, and the dry farmer can begin 

 his planting then with the understanding and knowledge that there will 

 be frequent showers in July and August. But this time Mr. Reeves got 

 a bad start and yet made phenomenal record. 



Results of Methodical Work. 



"It was the second day of June, 1908, before sufficient rain fell 

 upon the Reeves farm to enable him to begin his planting. Several heavy 

 rains followed, and in the sandy clay-mixed soil, the seed came up and 

 the young plants grew almost like Jack's bean stalk and shot heaven- 

 ward under the bountiful downpour and the coaxing of the sun. 



"On the first of September there came a frost, but the frost did not 

 seem to damage the growing crops in the least. They seemed better 

 able to stand it in that climate, for, instead of being killed, the stuff 

 took on new life and thrived. When I visited the place on the 10th of 

 October, the watermelons were just being taken to the cars for market, 

 and although there had been two frosts, the milo maize, kaffir cori 

 and Indian corn were still growing so fast I could almost see them 

 moving upward. The sorghum had just been harvested, and a man six 



