Dry-Farming : A System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low Rainfall

The acre-yields of crops on dry-farms, even under the most favorable methods of culture, are likely to be much smaller than in humid sections with fertile soils. The necessity f...

The large amount of water required for the production of plant substance is taken from the soil by the roots. Leaves and stems do not absorb appreciable quantities of water. The...

The demonstration in the last chapter that the water which falls as rain or snow may be stored in the soil for the use of plants is of first importance in dry-farming, for it ma...

Important as is the rainfall in making dry-farming successful, it is not more so than the soils of the dry-farms. On a shallow soil, or on one penetrated with gravel streaks, cr...

The great nations of antiquity lived and prospered in arid and semiarid countries. In the more or less rainless regions of China, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, Mexico, and Peru...

Water that has entered the soil may be lost in three ways. First, it may escape by downward seepage, whereby it passes beyond the reach of plant roots and often reaches the stan...

The careful application of the principles of soil treatment discussed in the preceding chapters will leave the soil in good condition for sowing, either in the fall or spring. N...

The work of the dry-farmer is only half done when the soil has been properly prepared, by deep plowing, cultivation, fallowing, for the planting of the crop. The choice of the c...

Irrigation-farming and dry-farming are both systems of agriculture devised for the reclamation of countries that ordinarily receive an annual rainfall of twenty inches or less....

Cheap land and relatively small acre yields characterize dry-farming. Consequently Iarger areas must be farmed for a given return than in humid farming, and the successful pursu...

It is difficult to obtain a correct view of the present status of dry-farming, first, because dry-farm surveys are only beginning to be made and, secondly, because the area unde...

The dry-farm territory of the United States stretches from the Pacific seaboard to the 96th parallel of longitude, and from the Canadian to the Mexican boundary, making a total...

The Shadow of the Year of Drouth still obscures the hope of many a dry-farmer. From the magazine page and the public platform the prophet of evil, thinking himself a friend of h...

The great depth and high fertility of the soils of arid and semiarid regions have made possible the profitable production of agricultural plants under a rainfall very much lower...

The soil treatment prescribed in the preceding chapters rests upon (1) deep and thorough plowing, done preferably in the fall; (2) thorough cultivation to form a mulch over the...

The annual precipitation of rain and snow determines primarily the location of dry-farm areas. As the rainfall varies, the methods of dry-farming must be varied accordingly. Rai...

The confidence with which scientific investigators, familiar with the arid regions, have attacked the problems of dry-farming rests largely on the known relationship of the wate...

Dry-farming, as at present understood, is the profitable production of useful crops, without irrigation, on lands that receive annually a rainfall of 20 inches or less. In distr...

Locate the dry-farm in a section with an annual precipitation of more than ten inches and, if possible, with small wind movement. One man with four horses and plenty of machiner...

The dry-farmer must never forget that the critical element in dry-farming is water and that the annual rainfall will in the very nature of things vary from year to year, with th...