THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



223 



our territory and establishing themselves upon our dry farm lands. 

 The dry farming industry has added thousands to our population, mill- 

 ions to our taxable property and has the first failure yet to be 

 recorded. 



"We welcome industrious people to our state, as thousands of acres 

 of rich virgin soil are still vacant and awaiting to be made productive 

 and profitable by people who are willing to do things." 



OPEN DISCUSSION. 



MR. HICKOK. Kansas: "It seems to me one thing that this Con- 

 gress should insist upon as the most important thing of all is the spread- 

 ing of this knowledge that has been gathered up and brought together. 

 If we know everything that can be possibly known about dry farming 

 and how to succeed in this science it will be of no value to our country 

 unless rt is put into the hands of the man who is doing the farming. 

 He is the man who must receive this knowledge, and I think the Con- 

 gress couldn't do better than to exert every effort to put this knowl- 

 edge into the hands of the farmer on the farm that he might assimilate 

 and use it." 



MR. GREGG, Minnesota : " I am in hearty sympathy with the re- 

 marks made by the presiding officer yesterday, and in substance that 

 was that we want a good deal of practical knowledge. I want to recog- 

 nize here the help I have received from the men who are professors in 

 agricultural colleges. I wouldn't say a word against them under any 

 consideration, but I want to say here on behalf of the farmers that there 

 have been some things said which are more or less misleading, and t 

 infer from some things said here that after all the years we have spent 

 along the line of semi-arid agriculture that we don't know anything. I 

 object. We do know something. We know something about farming and 

 we know something about success, and again we know some of the un- 

 derlying laws that enter into success. 



Water Conservation. 



"I think I know and understand this much that when we break up 

 this raw prairie we do it in order to get storage for water. We know 

 another thing. We know when we do that we destroy capillary action, 

 and when we pack it we restore capillary action, and at the same time 

 get rid of that density. In face of these facts I am against the statement 

 that I don't know anything, but when I get hold of a fact I hold to it. 

 Now the next proposition is this: We know there is such a thing as 

 surface mulch. Mulch, by the way is the way we check evaporation. 1 

 have been sorry here to see men antagonize my old friend, Prof. 

 Campbell. I don't say he knows everything, but I think he knows some 

 things and knows it mighty well. I worked along with him just by good 

 will and friendship and he struck something that looked good, a number 

 of years ago. 



