THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



257 



Twelve inch plowing, supplemented by fallowing, will accumulate in 

 a given time about twice as much moisture as s'.x or seven inch plow- 

 ing followed by the same amount of fallowing. It is also easier to 

 bold moisture in deep land than shallow. 



Soil Treatment. 



"When the corn has been harvested, after an average season, if 

 the plowing and cultivation have been good, there is usually some 

 moisture left over, probably from one to two feet, about ten per cent 

 v/et; then by disking and cultivating as soon as possible and keeping 

 the land open all winter and spring, we can usually secure at least 

 three feet of moist so'l by planting time, and if this three feet con- 

 tains about twelve to fifteen per cent water, a fi'ne crop can be raised 

 on it with the minimum rainfall of two to two and a half inches during 



Acreage Yields. 



the grov/ing season; but with the average precipitation of five or six 

 inches, the crop should run to nearly 40 bushels. 



"Four feet of moisture of course is a little better than three feet, 

 but not enough to pay for laying off the patch a whole year to accumu- 

 late this extra foot- 

 Deep Plowing. 



"The same with plowing; fifteen inch plowing will raise to the 

 acre a few more bushels than ten or twelve inch plowing, but not 

 always enough to make it profitable to keep an extra man and team 

 to sub-soil down to fifteen inches. 



Moisture Test. 



"The easiest way to test soil for moisture is to take a few pounds, 

 weigh it and then bake all the moisture out of it. then weigh again, — 

 the loss of weight of course is the amount of water gone out of it by 

 evaporation. The moisture in the subsoil usually runs pretty well 

 after a wet winter like the present, but should it turn as low as six to 

 eight per cent, in the upper three feet from the surface down, the man 



Summer Fallow. 



who plants a crop on it is takng chances, and it had better be lard 

 fallow for a whole season when it will accumulate enough moisture to 

 carry crops for several years successively. 



"In other parts of the West where the precipitation is less than we 

 have here, it may be found necessary to fallow almost every alternate 

 year. 



"And the question as to whether you fallow or not should be de- 

 cided by the amount of moisture you have at that time in the field, 

 and not by any hard and fast rule of fallowing^ just so often. 



"My object in dwelling so much on this moisture question, is to 

 show that by eliminating all elements of chance, we can make of this 

 dry farming business, almost an exact science. The everyday settler 



