Thorough Tiuuagr System ror Puains or Colorado. 29 
It is to be observed that the weather station records have not 
been taken for the same length of time in the different districts nor 
for the same number of years at the various stations within the 
districts. 
The above record is just as the U. S. Weather Office has re¬ 
ceived it and indicates the number of years the different stations 
have reported observations. It may possibly be interesting, in this 
connection, to look over the rainfall by months and years, as re¬ 
corded by Mr. R. E. Trimble, in charge of the meteorological ob¬ 
servations at the Fort Collins Station, in the North Central District 
of the state: 
It will be seen by this table that the years 1873, 1888 and 1893 
had less than 10 inches and the year 1901 more than 20 inches of 
rainfall. The last ten years show an average of 15.95 inches, while 
the preceding years, for which there is full record, give an average 
of but 12.12 inches rainfall. This would seem to suggest that our 
rainfall has great variations. It was the exceptionally dry years of 
1873, 1888 and 1893 which gave the farmers on our eastern plains 
little or no harvest. 
It is these “dry” years which test all systems of crop farming 
and soil culture. The past few years have been quite favorable for 
any system of careful farming, but we need to profit by the ex¬ 
periences of the past and not rely too much upon the average rain¬ 
fall or even the rainfall for some several years back. It is those 
years with a minimum rainfall which test our systems of crop 
farming. We have not met these years very successfully in the past 
and the careful plains’ farmer will be conservative in his farming 
ventures, until he has successfully tided over one or more of the 
“dry” years, when the rainfall drops below 10 inches per annum. 
