DRY LAND FARMING IN EASTERN COLORADO 
27 
A large share of the failures in growing barley come from late 
seeding. The seed is sown after the moisture held by the frost has 
been lost, making the early growth weak. The barley then heads 
too close to the ground to harvest. 
Two varieties are used for dry land farming; California Feed 
barley, and the Bald. The Bald barley is one of the best drought 
resisters, but the straw is weak near the head and with a good yield 
much of the grain falls down. California Feed barley is the best 
yielding variety in seasons of good rainfall. 
Oats is a poor dry land crop; very uncertain in yield. Many 
farmers sow oats, and if the drought is so severe at the time of head¬ 
ing that the heads will not fill, the crop when in bloom is cut for hay. 
The hay is excellent for horses and dairy cows. Kherson and Sixty 
Day are the varieties usually recommended. 
Spelts, or Emmer, as it is correctly called, looks like a cross be¬ 
tween barley and wheat. In threshing, the chaff remains attached 
to the grain. It is a strong drought resisting plant, and the grain 
is a good feed for horses, cattle and sheep. The grain contains too 
much hull to be a hog feed. Sow with a drill, the same time as for 
barley, using forty-five pounds of seed per acre. 
Flax, so far as tested, has proved to be a good dry land crop when 
the rainfall reaches an average, and a total failure in years of severe 
drought. In Lincoln county, in 1907, in large fields, the yield on sod 
was nine bushels per acre, and on summer fallow, twenty-two bushels 
per acre. In the same locality, in 1908, much of the acreage was not 
worth harvesting. 
It is one of the best crops for putting sod in mellow condition for 
ll:e crop which follows it. It should be sown early as it needs 
abundant moisture to push the young plants. Sow with a drill using 
twenty pounds of seed per acre. 
Flax straw is a good cattle feed as it contains some seeds and 
the oil in them is needed to balance the deficiency in fat found in 
most dry land crops. 
Dwarf Essex Rape has been described as a cabbage that keeps 
growing, but never forms a head. It stands cold and drought well, if 
sown as early in the spring, as the ground can be worked. Late 
seeding is a total failure in dry years. 
Sow in rows twenty-four inches apart, using three to five pounds 
of seed per acre. Cultivate frequently. It is the next best pasture 
to alfalfa for hog feed. The hogs should be turned on the field when 
the rape gets eight to ten inches high. It is best to divide the field 
into two lots and change the hogs from one to the other as they eat 
the crop down. 
Potatoes, if given special attention, can be grown most seasons 
on dry land farms where the soil is not heavy. In 1908, in a section 
of Kiowa county that produced no marketable grain, a farmer grew 
one hundred bushels of potatoes per acre on two acres. The patch 
