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The Colorado Experiment Station 
GENERAL FARMING PRACTICE AND MANAGEMENT 
Dry farming at its best is serious business. As a consequence, 
there are certain fundamental considerations which the settler 
should bear in mind. A well for domestic water supply is abso¬ 
lutely essential. If such domestic water supply cannot be ob¬ 
tained upon the land or immediately adjacent to it, other features 
would have to be extremely desirable to make it advisable to lo¬ 
cate a home there. The production of crops is more or less un¬ 
certain and the prospective settler should by all means bring suf¬ 
ficient capital in money, or in money and materials, to carry him 
thru at least one year until production can be started. 
For the most part the plains are treeless. In the building of a 
home, one of the first things, after the house and sheds for live¬ 
stock are provided, should be the making of some provision for 
trees. Where land is properly prepared and properly cultivated, 
trees can be grown almost anywhere on the plains, providing they 
are given sufficient space. The moisture supply on dry-land soils 
is always less abundant than it is in the humid regions; conse¬ 
quently, the trees should be set much farther apart. The sod 
should be broken up at once in preparation for planting trees. A 
strip should be plowed at least 20 feet wider than the expected 
space which the trees will occupy. This should be kept free of 
Thrashing “smutty” wheat, a source of heavy loss to many wheat 
growers. Seed treatment, costing from 8 to 15 cents per acre, will pre¬ 
vent smut 
