THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



55 



feet tall could not reach the tops of the shocks in the field. I took 

 several photographs of Postmaster J. A, Smith, of El Paso, six feet tall, 

 standing beside them as evidence of the height attained by the growth 

 of dry farm sorghum in three months. He could not reach the top. 



Windmills for Stock. 



"While this modern farmer had windmills on his place for watering 

 his cattle, and pumps water from a well about ninety feet deep — thero 

 rs plenty of water at varying depths over most of this southwestern coun- 

 try — he had no means of pumping a drop onto his seventy acre field and 

 every bit of the crop was raised with only the moisture that came down 

 from heaven. Mr. Reeves told me that he had tried alfalfa, a crop that 

 is known to require a great deal of water, and he also tried winter 

 wheat, but his turkeys liked both crops too well to allow him to ex- 

 periment successfully. 



Cotton Experiment. 



"He also sowed some cotton, for he loved the old weed that had 

 been his principal product back in east Texas, 800 miles away — think 

 of it, traveling that far in one state and still being 200 miles from the 

 other border. (Texas is great.) We raise rice in the marshes on one 

 side and watermelons without the use of water on the dry, so-called des- 

 ert on the other side, while we raise oranges and bananas in the south 

 along the coast, and cattle and sheep and icebergs and get the tail end 

 of the harvest cyclones on the northern border. 



"But his experiments with the cotton crop were not successful; 

 the cold spell caught it just as it was blossoming and he says he will 

 not lose any time experimenting with cotton again; but a couple of hun- 

 dred miles east cotton grows well on dry farms. He is going to try 

 wheat this year, and that he will meet with success is certain, for all 

 along the same line of railroad through New Mexico, up past Alamo- 

 gordo, Tularosa, Carrizozo, Tucumcari, Santa Rosa and other thriving set- 

 tlements, the dry farmers who farmed right have been harvesting boun- 



Crop Varieties. 



tfiul crops of wheat, raising prize pump*kins, growing blue ribbon com 

 and beans on land of a similar nature, and without irrigation; they have 

 demonstrated without doubt that the rainfall is sufficient. It is heavier 

 up there than at El Paso. 



"And all they have to do to get this land is just to settle down on 

 it, notify the nearest land office — and there is one at Tucumcari now — 

 the United States had to create it last year because the other land 

 offices in the territory had been swamped with the homestead applica- 

 tions — and go to work. In five years the government gives a deed to it. 



Dry Land Homesteads. 



Of the 23,000 homestead entries made during the last fifteen months 

 in New Mexico, 20,000 are located in the so-called 'dry farming' districts 

 of this territory. 



