THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



79 



Dry Land Valuable. 



This, to my mind, is utterly wrong, and I do not hesitate to say that, 

 in my opinion, the dry lands of the Transvaal, if cultivated on scientific 

 lines, are not only of the highest value to the individual farmer, but are 

 a priceless heritage to the state. 



American Idea. 



"It would take me too long were I to speak in detail of the history 

 of the dry-farming movement, brief as it has been in the Transvaal. I 

 may remark, however, that our inspiration came directly from the state 

 of Utah. Well, the result has been that the government of the Trans- 

 Experiment Station. 



vaal has recently started, under the Department of Agriculture, a Dry- 

 Land Experiment Station, close to the town of Lichtenburg in the west- 

 ern part of the Transvaal. So far as I am aware, this station is the first 

 to be established in the British Empire for the express purpose of in- 

 vestigating this particular branch of agricultural science. 



Precipitation Report. 



"Let us turn to the rainfall. Wben we consider the annual precipi- 

 tation of this colony it may appear fairly high if viewed from a strictly 

 Dry-Farming standpoint. At the same time it must be remembered that 

 no snow falls in the Transvaal as is the case in Wyoming and other 

 parts of America. Again, it is not so much from lack of rain that we 

 suffer in the Transvaal, as from its irregular distribution — a matter which 

 I shall make clear a little later. In those valuable reports which are 

 annually issued by Mr. R. T. A. Innes, the director of Meteorology for 

 the Transvaal, we find that last year (1907-1908) the lowest rainfall was 

 13 inches at Bloemhof, the highest 43 in the Wood Brush forest, with an 

 average precipitation for the whole year of 23.25 inches. Furthermore, 

 in surveying the precipitation data from individual stations we note that 

 whereas Schweizer Reneke in the Bloemhof district had only 17 inches 

 in the season of 1906-1907; the Wood Brush Forest in the Zoutpansberg 

 district in the Northern Transvaal had a. rainfall of 117 inches. I need 

 hardly remark that we do not propose to attempt dry-farming in this 

 portion of the colony. 



Precipitation Uncertain. 



"I now wish to touch on the uneven distribution of our rainfall. 

 Turning again to the Meteorological Report, we find that 26.12 inches 

 fell at the Government Forest Station; and now remembering that the 

 season in the Transvaal is the reverse of that of Wyoming and the 

 Great Plains region, we observe that during, what we may broadly call 

 our winter and spring months, viz.. May, June, July, August, Septem- 

 ber and October, only 2.12 inches fell during the whole six months; 

 whereas in the next six months or during our summer and autumn, viz., in 

 November, December, January, February, March and April, 24 inches 

 fell. Now the practical significance of this matter is plain, when we 



