THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



117 



He had an eight inch plow and a pretty short section of harrow^ but he 

 stayed with it. If a man in our country had big teams and worked aa 

 hard as he has worked, a good many of them would have gotten a better 

 proportion of yields, but that is the problem we are up against in New 

 Mexico. 



Problem of the Homesteader. 



"Over a large proportion of the territory of New Mexico it is a 

 homestead proposition, and men are coming in there with $500 and every- 

 thing else they have in the world on two-horse wagons. They are settling 

 out on the bare plains on 160 acres and undertaking to make a Irving. 

 When I tell you that these settlers are using good judgTaent, following 

 methods and are remaining on their homesteads, and that every one who 

 stays has more than when he came, you will agree that it speaks well 

 for the future of dry farming. With us it is not a question of the present 

 time; the question is, can we hold out and stay there, and get things in 

 such condition that we can live comfortably. Many of our men had 

 noth'ng when they came, so that if they go out 'broke,' they wouldn't go 

 much worse off than when they came. Of course, we have men with big 

 teams and machinery. I do not worry about them, because when they 

 are absolutely forcing Illinois and Iowa methods on us, I know they stand 

 a show of succeeding. 



Unfavorable Year. 



"I might say the past season- in Nevs' Mexico was quite unfavorable. 

 The preceding winter was dry and we had a late spr'ng, and our rain 

 fall until the first of July amounted to very little. I tell them down 

 there we have two seasons in the year, winter and summer, and- its 

 pretty hard tb tell where one starts and the other stops. About the 15th 

 of April we generally think the beginning of summer, but, instead of that 

 a year ago, we had about ten inches of snow in the lower plains country, 

 and at some points it was almost as cold as in winter. But we did have 

 some good days in March and a number of settlers got restless and put 

 in some ninety day corn. In some case.s there was moisture enough in 

 the ground so that it got up that high (indicating) and stood there ninety 

 days and didn't die, but when it did get moisture, it shot out tassels and 

 we got nothing but nubbins and the crop was a failure. They are gradu- 

 ally learning the lesson that they must wait until summer comes before 

 planting, and the great majority of those people who came out to New 

 Mexico to show us how to farm in the last year or two, since last year's 

 experience, are looking around for information, and, fortunately, they 

 are gathering a little of it. 



Study of Local Conditions. 



"The hardest proposition is to get a new settler to realize that each 

 locality has its own peculiar problems, and that his work must be adapted 

 to the local conditions. In New Mexico we are farming from 2,700 feet 

 TQ the extreme end of the territory, to up here on the Colorado line, in 

 Colfax country, at 8,000 feet. And not only that, but between those two 



