Seven Years of Dry-Farming

EDITOR'S TABLE. 553 study of the fourth year book for the Seventies' quorums, and must necessarily be impressed with the value, necessity, import- ance, beauty, effectiveness and glory of the great theme upon which it treats. Seven Years of Dry-Farming. The Era is in receipt of bulletin number 112 of the Utah Agricultural College Experiment Station, with the compliments of the author, Lewis A. Merrill. It is a report of seven years' in- vestigation of dry-farming methods, and is a booklet which should be in the hands of every farmer in the land. He calls attention to the fact that while the settlement of Utah was made possible be- cause of the introduction of irrigation, that dry-farming, or farm- ing without irrigation, which was practiced soon after the settle- ment of the tt-rritory, though many of these early attempts failed, is destined to be a powerful help in the material enrichment of the community. From the bulletin it appears that a successful attempt at dry-farming, though others had been made as early as 1857, was made in 1865, in the Bear River Valley, by a company of emigrants who came from the Scandinavian countries, and who had settled in what is now known as Bear River City on the Malad river. Just prior to 1870, Christopher Layton succeeded in this line, in Davis county; and in Cache valley, Joshua Salisbury of Wellsville, and George L. Farrell of Smithfied, both succeeded in dry-farming methods, in the early 70's. The author of the pam- phlet and Dr. John A. Widtsoe made an exhaustive study of the dry-farm situation in 1901. This study was practically forced upon them by the dry farm efforts of the farmers of Utah during the 80's. The farmers began to realize that the growth of population and the cost of producing wheat on irrigated lands would compel them to turn to the possibilities of dry-farming. This was followed in 1903, by the recommendation of Governor Heber M. Wells to the legislature which passed a law to have experimental farms es- tablished in various parts of the state. The direction of these farms was given to the State Agricultural College', and six such farms now exist in the state, while the dry-farm propaganda has spread in Utah until the methods are generally fairly well known

and practiced; hundreds of farmers are realizing good incomes from desert lands because of their strict adherence to the scien- tific dry-farm methods. So far in Utah there are only 983 square miles of land irri- gated, while the total area of Utah is 82,190 square miles. Of course, much of this country is mountainous, but a great deal of it may be used for dry-farming purposes. The pamphlet is brim full of information on dry-farming methods, gathered in seven years' experience on experimental farms, as well as historical facts invaluable to every farmer. Dry-Farming. Dry -Farming , a System of Agriculture for Countries Under a Low Rainfall, is the title of a new work just issued from the press of the McMillan Company, New York, price $1.50, in all book stores, by Dr. John A. Widtsoe, A. M. Ph. D., president of the Ag- ricultural College of Utah. The book consists of some 445 pages of matter, beautifully illustrated and printed in clear, handsome type. It is a pioneer work upon the subject on which it treats, since irri- gation and dry-farming have been given very scant attention here- tofore, though practically one-half of the earth's land surface.re- mains to be reclaimed by the methods of dry- farming; "dry" being a misnomer, the author explains, "carrying with it the idea of dryness, when dry-farming really means farming under drier conditions than those prevailing in countries in which scientific agriculture originated." But the term dry-farming, using the hyphen, has a meaning all its own, and becomes an addition to the lexicon. This pioneer book, in the field of dry-farming, is the first attempt to assemble and organize the known facts of science in their relation to the profitable production of plants, without irri- gation, in regions of limited rain-fall. The needs of the actual farmer have been kept in view primarily in its writing, though the author says that the subject is growing so rapidly now, that there will soon be room for two classes of treatment, one for the farmer, and one for the technical student. In the book's preface, the author calls attention to the stupendous possibilities of dry-farm- ing, and says to the present generation of men: