8 
The Colorado Experiment Station 
^Listed to prevent soil blowing and for summer fallow. This system 
has ’been practiced for fifteen years on this farm. During this period 
this farm has not had a complete crop failure 
In the spring, a seed bed may be prepared by breaking out 
the middles and leveling down the land with disk and harrow, or, 
in many instances simply by leveling down the land with disk and 
harrow. Where soils have a tendency to blow during the sum¬ 
mer season, the tendency can be largely overcome by planting- 
crops in strips so that strips of corn or sorghums are interspersed 
with strips of grain. These methods will almost entirely prevent 
soil blowing except in sand-hill sections where the soils are almost 
pure sand. 
SOME PRINCIPLES OF SOIL MOISTURE FOR 
DRY FARMING 
Dry farming never means farming without moisture. But it 
always means farming where the supply of natural moisture is de¬ 
ficient or low. Consequently, any discussion of dry farming that 
does not take into consideration the principles and conditions un¬ 
der which moisture is obtained, conserved and used, fails to meet 
all of the problem. 
In saving soil moisture, the first and most important process 
is to get it into the soil. If a rain of 3 inches falls and only 1 inch 
penetrates the soil, the land is worse off than if it had a 1-inch 
rain, all of it entering the soil. The 2 inches of water which did 
not soak in, ran off the top, carrying with it some soil, beating 
and puddling the surface, thus favoring the formation of a soil 
crust. Consequently, all cultivated land should be kept in the 
best possible condition to catch rainfall. 
What is that condition? Moist soil takes water rapidly, while 
dry soil takes water slowly. The first effort then should be to 
