THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



2GI 



Commercial Fruit. 



"This orchard Mas planted on what was origrnally dry buffalo 

 grass prairie, not in a draw, but on a flat side hill, and on the grass 

 alongside the orchard there was no moisture showing at any depth. 

 This success determined me to plant a commercial orchard, which I 

 did in 1895, starting with about 2,000 trees, apples, cherries and plums. 

 This orchard acted (if I may use the expression) exactly the same as 

 the other one, showing that my conclusions were correct. The fifth 

 year the cherries and plums had paid for the orchard to date, and 

 since then, with two bad years, I have sold from $3,000 to $4,000 

 worth of cherries, plums and apples. 



Field for Orchardists. 



"There is an immense field for this business in the plains region, — 

 people will come a hundred miles to get cherries, do their own pick- 

 ing, pack them home and can them for winter, glad to get them at any 

 price, and the sour cherries are the best drouth resisters and hardiest 

 trees I know of, and will stand anything most, but seepage, — over irri- 

 gation and floodwater. My friends who irrigate have long ago killed 

 theirs out and rely on me for their cherries. 



"My orchard is on a flat side hill facing east. I protect the cherries 

 from flood water from the hill by deep furrows on the outside of the 

 orchard. 



Depth of Moisture. 



"By up-to-date, careful cultivation, I have accumulated nearly 

 twenty-five feet of moist soil from the surface down. On the prairie 

 adjoining, there is no moisture at any depth. The top three feet con- 

 tains the highest percentage of moisture, and most of the roots. In 

 the spring the top three feet is ofter from fifteen to twenty per cent, 

 wet, but gets drier little by little as you go down. At about twenty 

 feet the clay is dry and crumbly. 



Drouth Resistant Trees. 



"The only effect of the last dry season, the driest in thirty years, 

 was to reduce the moisture in the top three feet from fifteen to twenty 

 per cent, down to about twelve to fifteen per cent. A tree can live 

 very well in six to eight per cent, and can winter in less than that. 

 Therefore it is easy to understand that an orchard in twenty feet of 

 moist soil securely by cultivation is absolutely drouth proof for one 

 dry year, or half a dozen. Now comes the question, — will this balance 

 of moisture in our favor continue indefinitely as the trees gi'ow larger- 

 The answer is, — it will, provided you give the trees room enough. 



Planting the Orchard. 



"My experience shows that apple trees planted twenty feet apart, 

 will hold their own, and bear good sized apples up to ten years and 

 over. From ten years up to full growth, forty feet is necessary in 



