-
Copyright by
L. M. Allen, 1915

Dry Land Farming
in the Southwest

farming for the family with little capital. The native wild grass is a

dependable dairy feed. Kafir and sorghum, when given good treatment,

never fail to produce feed crops. These sure feed crops make good
silage and for ten dollars outlay and his labor, the dry land farmer can build
a pit silo. Buyers of cream pay cash at the time of each purchase. The dry
land farmer with a herd of good dairy cows receives a cash income every
week through the year, whether the-season is wet or dry.

Dyes is the ONE neyver-failing money-making resource in dry land

The new settler in a dry land country who takes a herd of milking cows
with him can go out the first morning he is in his new home and milk the
cows while his wife is getting breakfast. He can separate the cream and
begin a steady cash income with the first day in his new home. The regular
weekly return from the sale of cream enables the new settler to pay cash
for his household supplies and he need not have store bills. The skim milk
fed to hens and pigs adds to the profits.

The countless losses and failures in dry land farming in the Southwest
have come from attempts to make a living from exclusive grain farming and
no stock. A careful dry land farmer in eastern Colorado raised six profitable
crops of grain in 18 years. The 1914 grain crop is heavy throughout the
Panhandle. The last generally good grain crop in that district was in 1908.
The man who depends entirely upon raising grain finds the wait between
crops too long. It is particularly hard when the new settler comes at the
beginning of a period of dry years. Where the main income is furnished by
the dairy cows, the dry land farmer lives comfortably every year. He sows
grain only in those seasons when there is ample moisture and the money that
the grain brings is a surplus that can be used for investment.

When the dry land farmer has sufficient capital and is not obliged to
have a weekly or monthly income, beef cattle, horses and mules are money-
makers. Many of the old settlers on the Plains have become wealthy and
now have fine homes, some of them are bank directors, from the profits made
from raising beef-cattle and horses. Beef-cattle can be finished to top the
market on silage made from kafir or sorghum fed with kafir or milo grain
and cottonseed meal. The gains are more rapid than the usual gains made
in the corn belt.

When you think of dry land farming think of dairying. When you
move to a dry land farm take ten to twenty good dairy cows with you. Make
your main crops feed crops for the dairy cows. Store the surplus in cheap
pit silos. Take good care of the cows and of the cream. You will prosper.

Agricultural Commissioner, Rock Island Lines

MAY -3 1915

©ciado1126

ys

< SAMSON

A Dry Land Farm Home.

Dry Land Farming
in the Southwest

H. M. COTTRELL,

Acricultural Commissioner

ROCK ISLAND LINES

The Land

HE new settler in a dry land district in the
ah Southwest should have a farm of 320 acres.

If he does not have sufficient capital to
justify the purchase of 320 acres, he should buy
160 acres and arrange to lease 160 acres of un-
broken land.

On the 320-acre farm, 160 should be kept in
native grass to be used as needed for a pasture
either summer or winter. The native grass has
never been appreciated by the dry land farmers.
Nine out of every ten of them have a eraze for
plowing up all the land for which they can secure
title. Ninety-nine dry land farmers out of every
hundred have from two to ten times as much
land under cultivation as they can handle thor-
oughly. The result is failure after failure to
raise good crops, while if such an acreage only as
can be well worked is under cultivation, the
yields will be good in most years. Many dry land
farmers fail because they have 100 to 200 acres
per man under cultivation when they have team
power sufficient for forty acres only.

A 160-acre native grass pasture is one of the
most certain assets of a 320-aecre dry land farm.
The native grasses have been thoroughly adapted
to soil and climate by thousands of years of
struggle, in which the fittest have survived. From
four to eight acres will furnish feed for a cow
through the summer and an equal acreage, not

pastured in the summer, will supply a good share
of the feed she needs in winter. In a long con-
tinued drought the native grass gets short, but
always supplies some feed, and the deficiency can
be made up by silage.

An Iowa farmer came to eastern Colorado too
late in the fall to raise crops. On the farm that
he bought was a good native grass pasture that
had not been used during the summer. Cows on
this pasture as their only feed returned an aver-
age of $4 per month per cow. The reason that
winter pasture on the dry farming lands is so
valuable is that there is so little rainfall during
the fall and winter. The grass cures where it
grows and there is no moisture to wash away
the nutriment. The native pasture deserves good
eare. It should not be over-pastured and when
weeds develop they should be cut.

For the 160 acres used for crops the following
arrangement is suggested, subject to such
changes as individual conditions make necessary:

60 aeres in cultivated crops.

20 acres in hay and forage crops.

40 acres in small grain.

5 acres in home grounds, garden and yards.
10 aeres in hog pasture.

25 acres in native grass-reserve winter pasture.

160 acres.

The sixty acres in cultivated crops should be
planted to kafir, milo or feterita, depending on
the rainfall. No corn should be grown for grain
except on the Arkansas Divide, east of Colorado
Springs.

4 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

The twenty acres for hay should be sown to
winter rye, sorghum or millet, as the rainfall and
farm work make advisable. Five acres may be
sown to sweet clover and it is probable that the
amount will be increased after the farmer learns
how to raise and feed the erop.

The forty acres for small grain should be sown
only in seasons when the soil is in such condition
as to force rapid growth after seeding. In other
years this land may be summer fallowed by list-
ing and planted to cultivated crops the following
spring.

One acre of the five selected for home grounds
should be used for a garden and irrigated from
the windmill. This acre will supply more vege-
tables, berries, rhubarb and asparagus than a
large family can use through the year.

The new settler on the dry land farm will have
to sow rye, winter wheat, rape and sorghum for
his hog pasture until he ean get sweet clover or
alfalfa established. Ten acres, in an ordinary
year, is sufficient to pasture five brood sows and
their pigs.

On most 160-acre tracts there is a small ravine
or some rough land and this can be inaluded in
the twenty-five acres reserved especially for win-
ter pasture.

To utilize the crops from a 320-acre farm in
the dry land district, one well managed according
to this plan, there will be required twenty good
dairy cows, five brood sows and 100 or more hens.

Choice cows, well fed, will return $75 a cow
yearly from the sale of cream; good grade cows,
$50 each a year, and poor ones, $25 each. Twenty
good grade cows properly selected will return
to their owner $1,000 a year, besides the skim
milk and the butter, cream and milk used by a
large family.

With ordinary eare, thirty pigs can be raised to
marketable age from five good brood sows. The
farmer can take five for his own use and sell
twenty-five. At a fair price these will sell for
$300. The last two years they would have
brought $375 to $400.

If the dry land farmer will select a good laying
strain of fowls and keep only early hatched pul-
lets and one-year-old hens, and make a business
of taking care of them, he can make $2 to $3 a
hen a year above all cash outlay. The only feed
that he will have to buy will be meat, oyster
shells and grit. Skim milk will take the place of
most of the meat. One hundred hens, rightly
managed, will return $200 a year, besides all the
eggs, frys and roasters the family wants.

A fait yearly cash income from a 320-acre dry
land farm, well managed according to this plan,
will be, from cows, $1,000; hogs, $300; poultry,
$200; total, $1,500, and a bountiful living for a
large family. In poor years the return may be
less; in good years, more. There is not an item
in this account that cannot be increased by expert
management. <A skilled dairyman with choice
cows will secure $1,500 a year from the sale of
cream alone. In seasons favorable to grain, the
forty acres of small grain will bring $400 to $600.

A special feature of this plan is that through
the sales of cream and butter a weekly cash in-
come is secured throughout the year. The sur- —
plus forage crops produced in the good years
can be held over to supply the deficiency in dry
seasons. The dry land tarmer will not be forced
to sell them.

This income is based on an adequate equipment
of teams and stock and thorough farming. If the
equipment is insufficient, or the stock of the
wrong type, or the management poor, the returns
will be lessened in proportion to the lack. If
the farmer is lazy or incompetent, or belongs to
the always ‘‘unlucky”’ class. the income may drop
any amount down to nothing. Dry land farming
is a business that men without farm training
should let strictly alone. They can count, with
rare exceptions, on absolute failure.

BUILDINGS AND EQUIPMENT FOR A 320-
ACRE DRY LAND FARM.

Buildings and Fencing.

Four-room house .................. $600
Stable for four horses .............. 100
Shed for ten cowsns-. ess oe ences 100
Wee ee aire) isl Siva cian velop erooaneiene ues 150
Windmill and pump ................ 110
Water tank (fifteen barrels)......... il65
Two» Dit (SilOsisyetet ae aw tense eda eee 40
Barbed wire fence (4% miles)....... 245
Hog fence (half mile)............... 65—$1,425
Livestock.
Usy A(SOMV hig ciasneaiac eo che cosas Oro 0.0\d'o.0.6.0.010.0 $750
One hundred hens...............-.-.-. 100
IDG. CKohits ob omos en oonohoaogcumooan 15
Three heavy horses and harness...... 500—$1,425
Implements and Tools.
PMO (UASIAGN). go ccccscaccodaccgb0e $ 12
Ibe ANG “Che gocooobnceo00bcd000 28
Lister sled cultivator................ 18
MVE 5 Biguqii oo Cob OU Oooo OOo Od 6 85
IDI, INEWHRONY sooadoogonaooaaDoodoDD 35
Spike tooth harrow...............-. 14
Two-horse cultivator ............... 20
One-horse cultivator (14-tooth)...... 5
MPN PiNES TAEOMING osoococccodoao000006 55
Hay AaTrake eu. epcgntocy aescheticmee sy ene homer 35
Grain drill (ten discs, press wheels)... 100
Four 40-quart milk cans............. 14
Hand cream separator............... 50

Tools, milk pails, forks, etc...........

Sunday School Rally, Twenty-two Miles from
Nearest Railroad Point.

ROCK ISLAND LINES ie 5

This equipment fences the farm to the best ad-
vantage, equips it with ample buildings and with
horses and cows sufficient to do good work and
secure a good weekly cash income. As fast as
the income from the farm justifies it, the herd
should be increased to twenty choice cows and
to five heavy work horses. If the horses are
mares, the colts will add to the income. The
poultry can be increased to 400 hens easily by
selecting the best of the early hatched pullets
for two or three years, and the number of brood
sows can be increased to any desired number by
the saving each year of the best sow pigs.

WHAT TO DO WHEN CAPTIAL IS
INSUFFICIENT.

The buildings, fencing, livestock, implements
and tools recommended for the most advantage-
ous equipment of a 320-acre dry land farm re-
quire an investment of $3,346, besides the first
payment on the land. Many men who hope to
build homes on dry land farms do not have so
much money.

By using adobe brick, which are home-made,
the cost of the house can be reduced one-third,
and that of the stable, shed and hen house, one-
half. The cost of the buildings will be reduced
from $800 to $500, the new settler using in this
case his labor and time instead of money.

A small pit silo ean be built for a cash outlay
of $10. The barbed wire fence can be limited to
two miles that is necessary to fence around one
160-aere field, which will cost $110. The hog
fence requirements may be cut in half, which will
make the cost $35. If badly cramped for money,
the new settler can start with five cows, costing
$250. He ean start with $50 worth of hens and
one brood sow costing $15. He should not reduce
the expenditure for horses, as horse power is
one of the great assets in successful dry land
farming. He can rent a grain drill and save
$100. With these cuts, a fair outfit can be se-
cured for $2,140. Many farmers have the teams
and tools and stock, in which case they could
start with $1,000 cash, in addition to the first pay-
ment on the land.

Many men who are now ‘‘comfortably well off”’
started on dry land farms with much less, but
they had hardships that they would not care to
repeat. One of the most successful dry land
farmers in Colorado had a one-room shack built
on his farm and took his wife and three babies
to it with cash assets of $4.60. He worked for
neighbors, borrowed implements, got hold of a
cow or two, and finally got on his feet and made
a good income every year. He is the kind of man
that will succeed anywhere.

Another man had the money to put up a small
house and a shed. He had two horses and a
cow and brought with him a fair stock of farm
implements. He started to raise grain only.
Drought followed drought. He decided to leave
the country and offered his goods for sale. A

banker heard of it and sent for the man. The
banker told him to stay. The dry land farmer’s
cow was an unusually good one. The banker
said that he would loan the farmer money enough
to buy another cow, taking the two for security
and to receive one-half the cream money until the
note was paid. The farmer reluctantly consented
to try the plan, as there was a large acreage of
wild grass pasture near his place. He soon paid
for the second cow. The banker loaned him
money on the same terms to buy two more. Soon
the farmer owned four cows and the banker
loaned him the money to buy four more. He
now owns a good herd and is an enthusiast on
the advantages of dry land farming, but his first
struggles were harder than most men would en-
dure. <A good dairy herd, owned from the start,
would have prevented this hardship and given
him a weekly cash income.

A mistake that has led to failure with many dry
land farmers is paying too much for their
land. Land is worth that amount only upon
which the net returns equal a fair rate of interest.
For example, in sections of the Southwest it is
considered that 640 acres in native grass will fur-
nish the feed for twelve months for forty cattle.
What is the land worth? Suppose that 75 cents
a month per head is charged for pasture, or $9
per head per year. A 640-acre tract brings an
annual rental of $360. If money loaned on land
brings eight per cent, then $360 is a fair return
on $4,440, and this is the worth of 640 acres, a
little less that $7 an acre.

Yet thousands of dry land farmers have paid
$20 to $30 an acre for raw land of exactly this
kind, and have lost all they had because there
was no way in which to meet the interest and
payments due on the high valuation.

Men who ask high prices for such land base
their prices on what it will return when fenced
and improved with buildings, water works,
stocked with dairy cattle and under a good state
of cultivation. The buyer has to make all these
improvements and he should get the benefit of
the increase in the value of the land which his
expenditures make, and not the man who sells the
raw land.

There is very little raw dry farming land in
the Southwest that is worth, as a producing prop-
osition, more than $10 an acre, and most of it is
not worth more than $5 an acre.

| The Dairy Cow

HE kind of cows which the dry land farmer
milks and uses to consume his feed deter-
mines whether he will eke out a bare liv-

ing or have a comfortable income. The dry land
farmers, as a class, pay less attention to the se-
lection of cows that will return good profits than
any other farmers in the world. The majority
of these farmers think that any cow that has a

ras ee DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

calf taken away from her when she is fresh there-
by becomes a dairy cow, even though her udder
is no larger than a man’s hat and her shoulders
and loins are thick meated.

I held a dairy meeting in a dry farming district
in eastern Colorado and had some good dairy
cows to show the audience how to select one. A
farmer got up and said that his wife, himself
and his children were working harder than people
had any right to work, and yet it was a severe
struggle to make even a bare living. They de-
pended for their living on a dairy herd. He said
that he thought from my talk that he must be
milking the wrong kind of cows. He asked me
if I would be willing to examine his cows if he
and his boy would drive the herd to the meeting.
Of course, nothing suited me better.

He brought in the fourteen cows he was milk-
ing. One was a grade shorthorn of strong dairy
type and would produce at least $75 worth of
cream a year. The other thirteen were just cows,
cows with small beefy udders, thick backs and
small paunches, cows that would each produce
$2 to $3 worth of cream a month for a few
months after coming fresh, and then become
‘‘strippers’’ for the rest of the year. This herd
fairly represents the cows that most dry land
farmers are milking.

The farmer said that he would fatten his poor
cows and with the money that they brought he
would buy the right kind. He said that he was
sure that with the right kind of cows he could
get $1,000 more each year from the feed that he
raised.

The first thing to be looked for in selecting a
profitable dairy cow is a large paunch. The more

feed a cow can eat and store and turn into milk,
the more. will she increase the owner’s bank ac-.
count. The dry land farmer cannot afford to
buy grain, unless perhaps a little cottonseed meal.
He must feed his cows almost entirely on rough,
bulky feeds, such as grass, silage, sorghum hay
and Spanish peanut hay. A cow to return profits
must be able to store, twice a day, a large quan-
tity of these coarse feeds.

The paunch must stand out wide and be long
and deep. To allow this, the ribs must be long
and well rounded, and there should be a long
space between the hip bone and the last rib.
Blocky and pony built cows turn their feed into
flesh instead of milk and give a good quantity
of milk for only a few months. A flat ribbed
cow is not profitable, as her paunch cannot spread
out enough.

The second thing to look for is a sharp, thin
meated back just behind the shoulders. When a
cow is in good flesh and has a sharp, thin back,
it indicates that she does not change her feed into
flesh. When a cow has a smooth round, thickly
meated back, it shows that she changes her feed
into flesh. With the thin sharp back are usually

‘prominent hip bones and thinly fleshed thighs

and shoulders. In an animal that turns its feed
into flesh, the hip bones do not show much, as
they are covered with meat.

The third thing to look for is a place for a large
udder. The udder is the machine that makes the
milk from the food materials digested and ab-
sorbed by the body. A large, good udder will
produce a large yield of milk. Nature never puts
a good udder outside the body. A good dairy
cow has the flank well arched and is eut high be-

Fall Listing on Hillsides—Holding Snow. Furrows Run on Level on Hillsides to Prevent Washing.

ROCK ISLAND LINES " 7

tween the hind legs. These two features indicate
a place for a large udder. In a cow that turns
her feed to beef, the flank comes down almost
straight with the belly line and the flesh between
the hind legs comes down well toward the belly.

There are many minor points that an expert
studies in selecting a money making cow, but if
the beginner will make himself competent to se-
lect cows having these three special features
strongly developed, he may feel sure of being
able to choose cows that, properly fed, will pay
well. In every town are several family dairy-
cows that give large quantities of milk through
most of the year and are hard to ‘‘dry up.’’ The
owner of each of these cows boasts that his cow
furnishes all the milk, cream and butter that his
large family can use, and that he frequently has
milk to sell. A day spent in studying such cows
and in comparing their points with those of cows
that give little milk, but are thick meated beef
animals, will enable a dry land farmer to select
cows that will return to him $75 a cow a year in-
stead of $24 a cow from a ‘‘hit and miss’’ herd.

WHERE TO FIND THE Cow.

The most profitable cow is the pure bred of
the strong dairy type—a cow whose ancestors for
centuries have been selected, fed and handled to
produce large yields at low cost. In eastern Col-
orado most of the expert dairymen keep Hol-
steins. The Texans generally prefer the Jerseys.
Few dry land farmers have either the money to
buy these specially bred dairy cows or the expe-
rience to handle them.

Most of the dry land farmers will have to be
content with common grade cows selected from
range herds. In most beef herds in the South-
west will be found one or more choice dairy
cows.. Usually they are grade shorthorns that
have “‘bred back’’ to the original shorthorn of one
hundred years ago, which was a good milk pro-
ducer. The cattlemen will generally sell such
cows for less money than the smooth, thick
meated ones, because such cows are ‘‘rough.’’

A dry land farmer who learns to choose a good
dairy cow ean, by taking plenty of time, ride
around among the beef herds and buy here and
there a good cow. A dairy herd can be built up
in this way at a low cost that will produce $50 to
$75 worth of cream a cow each year. The farmer
should always be ready to fatten and sell any cow
in his herd that does not come up to this standard
and always ready to use this money to buy a good

cow.
FEEDING THE DAIRY COW.

Native pasture and silage should be available
summer and winter. The silage should be fed
generously at any time of the year when the grass
is not sufficient to secure a high yield of milk.
In dry times during the summer and at all times
during the winter, sorghum hay and the hay
from either alfalfa, sweet clover or Spanish pea-
nuts, should be fed liberally. Rye pasture can
usually be provided and it makes a good winter

feed. In favorable years wheat pasture may fur-
nish nearly all the feed needed for a high yield
during the winter. Five good cows fed all they
will eat will yield more profit than fifteen half
starved.

The daily ration must be balanced between the
starchy, heat-making feeds like silage, sorghum
hay, corn fodder and millet and the blood- and
muscle-making feeds like alfalfa, sweet clover
and Spanish peanut hays. Every cow yields a
good flow of milk on green, luscious grass. The
grass furnishes about three and a half parts of
the starchy to one of the blood and muscle-
making material. Dry land farmers often say
that sorghum hay will “‘dry up’’ a cow if she is
given enough of it. It will when fed alone, but
it may be fed in large quantities to advantage
when balanced properly with hay from alfalfa,
sweet clover or Spanish peanuts. Cottonseed meal
is a convenient feed in Texas and Oklahoma with
which to balance sorghum and millet hay and
silage.

| The Pit Silo

WO thousand pit silos were made and filled
in the fall of 1913 in the dry farming dis-
tricts served by the Rock Island Lines.

The summer was one of the dryest ever known,
not only in the dry farming country but through-
out the West. Corn and feed crops were burned
and dried up through the Middle West. The
farmers who dug pit silos were able to save this
seorched and withered forage by putting it into
the silos. The silage furnished a succulent feed
and made the cows give a flow of milk that
brought a cash income throughout the winter.
These pit silos were built at a total cash outlay
per silo of from $5 to $25.

The pit silos and the silage changed the senti-
ment of the people throughout the dry farming
districts of five southwestern states. Any man,
no matter how cramped financially, can make a
pit silo. Few dry land farmers in a bad year are

A Sod Poultry House in Eastern Colorado.

8 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

able to spend $200 to $800 to build a silo above
ground. But little feed value can be realized
from crops ‘“‘burned up’’ by drought when they
are saved in shocks. The leaves blow away and
the sand and the dirt blow through and through
the shocks. The parched and shriveled feed put
into the pit silos made money for every man who
had them. The conclusion which the men reached
was that when they could make money in an
unfavorable year with feed scorched by drought,
that they could make more money in the average
years when good feed is produced by putting it
in the silos. The silo would make dry land farms
money producers every year.

MAKING THE PIT SILO.

Drive a rod or piece of gas pipe into the ground
at the center of the silo. Bore a hole in one end
of a 2x4 plank and run the rod through the hole.
At the other end of the 2x4 drive two heavy
spikes. The inside spoke should be set at a dis-
tance from the rod equal to one-half the diameter
of the silo. The outer spike should be driven
one foot farther out. Swing the 2x4 in a circle
on the ground and the spikes will serateh two
circles, twelve inches apart. Dig a trench two
or three feet deep between these circles. Fill
the trench with a mixture of sand and cement,
using one part of cement to six of sharp, clean
sand. Let this set and harden for two or three
days. It makes a collar for the pit silo.

It is often advisable to extend this collar two
to four feet above the surface of the ground in
order to keep storm water from running into the
silo. This ean be done by using metal lath for
a core on which to place the conerete, or two cir-

Hip bones covered
with flesh.

comes down nearly to belly.

Flesh between hind legs
No room for udder.

Flank nearly straight with
belly. No room for udder.

eat | ee

eles of the proper size and height can be made of
galvanized iron and used for forms between
which .the concrete can be placed. As soon as
the concrete above ground has set, remove these
forms. One set of forms will do for a neigh-
borhood.

As soon as the collar has become well set, dig
the silo. Start on the inside of the collar, and
as you dig down keep the walls smooth and per-
pendicular. Any bulge or hollow makes an air
space that causes spoiled silage. In El Paso
County, Colorado, many pit silo builders saw off
the 2x4 used to mark out the silo, so that it will
just swing inside the wall as the hole is dug. On
the outer end of this 2x4 they bolt a knife made
from an old plow share, the front edge of the
knife being kept sharp. As they dig down they
keep driving down the center rod so this it is al-
ways in the center of the silo. With their spades
they dig out the earth almost to the silo wall.
They then swing the 2x4 around the cirele and
the knife on the end shaves off the dirt, making
the wall smooth and exactly in line.

Dig down six feet, wet the dirt wall thoroughly
and plaster it with a mixture of one part cement
to two parts of sharp, clean sand, making the
plaster three-fourths to an inch thick. The dirt
wall can be wet before it is plastered by taking
water from a pail and spreading it on the wall
with a broom. When the soil is not wet it ab-
sorbs the moisture from the cement mixture, dry-
ing out the plastering so quickly that it is likely
to peel off after a year’s use. Dampen the cement
plaster twice a day for a week. Cement that
dries slowly is tough; when it dries quickly it
eracks or crumbles.

Round thick
meated back.

Type of Meat Animal.

ROCK ISLAND LINES

When six feet of the wall are plastered, dig
down another six feet and plaster it and con-
tinue until you have reached the desired depth.
This method makes scaffolding unnecessary.
After the plastering is finished, wet the walls
thoroughly and paint them with a mixture of pure
cement and water made about as thick as cream.
The bottom will need no cement.

These directions are for making a pit silo in
dry, hard ground. In sandy ground the plaster-
ing may have to be made three inches thick. The
plan usually followed is to dig the hole, then use
the galvanized sheet iron circle for an inside form,
and the earth wall for the outside form. Start
at the bottom and fill the space between the iron
form and the earth with the cement mixture. Let
this set, then raise the form and fill the sec-
tion above, and so on until the top is reached.

SIZE OF SILO.

A. mixed herd will eat about thirty pounds of
silage a head a day. If the herd is all mature
cows, forty pounds a head a day will be needed.
For six months feeding of a mixed herd it is
safe to calculate on three tons per animal.

Decide on the number of days that silage
probably will be fed, including summer as well
as winter, and the number of eattle to be fed.
You can then calculate the number of tons of
silage needed. The depth of the pit silo should
be about twice the diameter. The capacity of
silos is as follows:

Prominent
hip bones.

Large paunch
room for feed.

Long distance between
last rib and hip bones.

Cut up between hind legs
leaving room for udder.

Arched flank providing

room forzudder,

9
Diameter, Depth, Capacity,
feet. feet. tons.
12 20 38
14 25 rial
16 30 119
18 32 166
20 36 243

Two pulleys attached to a derrick made from
three poles, a tub made from half an oil barrel
and a rope make a cheap device for hoisting out
the silage. A hay track with a box attached to
the carrier makes a convenient hoisting appa-
ratus. Ingenious dry land farmers have devised
many other handy methods.

THE FEEDS TO GROW FOR SILAGE.

The Kansas Experiment Station in three years’
feeding tests with both beef and dairy eattle
found that silage made from corn, kafir and sor-
ghum have equal feeding value, ton for ton, pro-
vided each is cut at the proper stage of maturity.
The corn should be cut when the kernels become
well dented and the kafir and sorghum when the
seeds become so hard that they cannot be crushed
between the thumb and forefinger, but while the
leaves are green and the stalks sappy.

The crop to grow, then, is that one of these
three, which, on the grower’s farm, will probably
produce the greatest number of tons per acre.
Whichever crop is selected should be planted and
cultivated to produce the largest yield of grain.
Thick planted crops with little grain lack feed
value.

Sharp
thin back.

Type of Dairy Cow.

10 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

FILLING THE SILO.

The green material should be cut into short
lengths, three-fourths to one inch, and this ma-
terial should be so closely packed everywhere in
the silo that very little air can find space be-
tween the particles. The closer the green pieces
are packed and the less air between them, the
better will the silage heat, cure and keep.

The material in the silo will not pack suffi-
ciently close unless it is damp. It should be damp
enough so that when a handful is picked up as it
goes from the eutter to the silo a little juice
can be squeezed out of it. Each piece should be
damp all over. It does not pack well when some
handfuls are dripping wet and others too dry.
Green, sappy corn, just in the roasting stage, has
the right amount of moisture to pack well. If the
material being put into the silo is dryer than this,
sprinkle it with water as it leaves the cutter so
that it will become just moist enough. A few
feeders wet the silage until it is sloppy. This
injures it.

There should be a careful man in the silo as it
is being filled to see that the feed is evenly dis-
tributed and evenly packed. Keep the stalks,
leaves and grain thoroughly mixed all the
time clear across the silo. Keep the feed level and
evenly packed in the center and along the side.
The man should press his feet down hard as he
tramps the feed, and when he finds a pocket or
hollow place he should fill and tramp it until it
is firm as the material around it.

Some men tramp the center hard and neglect
the material on the outside. In this case the cen-
ter settles but little, the outside settles most,
contracts and draws away from the walls, letting
in the air. Spoiled silage follows. Other men let
the material in the center take care of itself and
tramp hard along the walls of the silo. In this
ease the outside settles little. the center much,
and the air is drawn into the mass of silage and
a lot of it is spoiled. The green material must
be tramped firmly throughout the silo.

The dry land farmers feed silage with good re-
sults to horses, mules, colts, dairy and beef ani-
mals, calves, hogs and poultry. The only pre-
caution necessary is that moldy silage must not
be fed to horses, mules and colts. It is likely to
kill them.

| - Beef Cattle

HE dry farming districts of the Southwest
offer good opportunities for the man with
capital to raise and fatten beef cattle. For

the past forty years or more the stockmen in
these districts have raised beef cattle by the mil-
lions and have sent them to the North and East
to be fattened. It has been the generally ac-
cepted opinion that cattle could not be finished
on dry land feeds to make choice beef, The feed-

ing of silage made from dry land crops with cot-
tonseed meal and kafir and milo by feeders in
widely scattered territory has demonstrated that
in the dry land country beef cattle can be well
fattened at a low cost.

The three years demonstration at the Kansas
Agricultural College showing that silage made
from corn, kafir and sorghum has the same value,
ton for ton, when each is cut at the proper stage
of maturity, has opened up a great field for feed-
ers in the Southwest. In western Kansas and
Oklahoma an acre of sorghum, well cultivated
and put in the silo at the right time, will, in an
average year, furnish the rough feed for three
stock cattle through the winter, or the rough feed
needed in fattening eight steers.

The farmers in western Kansas and Oklahoma
by growing kafir or sorghum can secure as many
tons of silage per acre with as great a feed value
as is now being obtained by the corn growers
in the Mississippi Valley. Milo, when acclimated
seed is used, is a Sure grain crop. Heads of milo
ground without the expense of threshing and
sprinkled over the silage, makes a ration that
will put two pounds ot gain per day a head on
fattening steers. Three or four pounds of cot-
tonseed meal a day per steer added to the ration
will nearly double the gains and reduce the cost.

In western Texas sorghum is a sure forage
crop. The red sumac is the variety that has av-
eraged the highest yields. The crop should be
cut and put into the silo as soon as the seeds are
hard. Large areas can be handled cheaply and
well by planting with a two-row lister and culti-
vating with two-row cultivator. Mile-long rows
are practicable on every ranch and help reduce
the cost.

The cattlemen of west Texas have spent more
money in improving the blood in their herds than
the stockmen of any other grazing district. In
almost any herd in west Texas the calves at wean-
ing time are equal in form, size and weight to
the pure bred cattle of the corn belt. From wean-
ing time on they generally show a steady deterio-
ration in quality so long as they are kept on their
home ranches. The feed is dry in winter and
often deficient in quality. The yearling in the
spring weighs less than he did the fall before and
it takes him until the first of July to get back to
the weight he had when he was weaned. Some-
times a severe drought cuts off the feed in sum-
mer: and the cattle become so stunted that they
never fully recover.

Silos filled with cane will stop these losses.
Summer or winter, whenever feed gets short, sil-
age can always be ready, and with it there never
need be a day in the life of a steer in Texas that
he does not gain in weight. The Texas stockman
can open his silos as soon as the pastures get
short, feed just enough silage to keep the stock
gaining, and as soon as good pastures come again,
seal up the silage that is left and hold it for an-
other time of need. In years of heavy rainfall sil-
age can be stored for years of drought. It is just

ROCK ISLAND LINES 11

as good six years after it is made as in the first
season.

Cane will enable the west Texas stockman to
fatten his cattle. Milo is a good grain crop in
that part of the state, and Texas is the largest
producer of cottonseed meal. Milo, ground in
the head and mixed with cottonseed meal, and
the mixture sprinkled on cane silage, will put
three to five pounds of gain a day on a well bred
Texas steer.

The dry land districts of the Southwest have
great advantage as a feeding country. Dry win-
ters insure dry feed lots. The crisp, dry air gives
the fattening steer an appetite that forces him to
eat enough feed to make rapid gains. The cli-
mate requires only cheap shelter for stock. The
character of soil and lay of land enable one man
to plant and cultivate a large area. There is an
abundance of good water. The silo provides a
way to make use of these opportunities.

Most of the men who will settle the plains will
be men of much energy and little capital. They
will make dairying their main source of income
because they will need the regular weekly cash
return from the sale of cream. These men will
become prosperous and in such financial condi-
tion that they will not need quick sales. They will
then gradually change their herds from the dairy
to the beef type and fatten the beef cattle that
they raise.

Under plains conditions, where two or more
men work together, 200 beef cattle can be well
taken care of per man. It seems probable that
the dry land feeder will keep his pasture filled to
the limit with breeding cows, using silage when-
ever the pasture becomes short. The calves will
be forced from the time they are weaned and will
be marketed at top price when fourteen to eigh-
teen months of age.

| Hogs

AISING hogs is a profitable sideline on dry
land farms. Climatie conditions are par-
ticularly favorable for handling hogs

cheaply. The kafirs—kafir, milo and feterita—
are sure grain crops, and ten bushels of either
are equal to nine bushels of corn. Hogs will
make 500 to 1,000 pounds of gain from each acre
of Spanish peanuts and gather the crop them-
selves. Alfalfa furnishes good pasture where
there is water five to ten feet below the surface
and sweet clover yields well even on the dryest
hills. The skim milk from the dairy cows will
push the pigs at weaning. Denver, Wichita,
Oklahoma City and Ft. Worth are good markets
close to the dry land farming districts, and each
needs a hundred times as many hogs as they
are getting.

Hog raising has generally been a failure on dry
land farms. One class of men have failed be-
cause they have kept their hogs in dry lots and
fed them grain only. The grain cost more than
the hogs were worth, the hogs became unthrifty
because they did not have pasture, they got lousy
and the dust made them cough so badly that
they could not make gains.

Another class of dry land farmers took pretty
good care of the pigs until they were weaned and
then turned old hogs and pigs together into a
seant pasture, fed little or no grain through the
summer and were careless about watering. In
the fall they had a lot of badly stunted shoats
on hand. Some years there was a good grain
crop, but it took twice as much grain to fatten
the hogs as it would if they had not been stunted.
In years when corn failed the farmer had a big

Showing Construction of Pit Silo on Dry Land Farm,

12 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

bunch of stunted hogs that he could not sell and
for which he had no feed.

Hog raising can be made profitable on dry land
farms when it is handled rightly. A few sows
only should be kept; two to five are enough to
start with. The sows should be prolific, the kind
that raise from eight to ten pigs at a litter. The
farmer must provide cheap but good shelter at
farrowing time and must give the sow such care
that she will save every pig that is born. The
skim milk should be fed the sows and pigs until
the pigs are weaned and then the pigs should
get it. A pig should have a little grain every day
of his life—one to three pounds each daily until he
weighs 100 pounds, and then two to four pounds
daily. A pig should have rough feed every day
of his life. pasture in the summer and alfalfa or
sweet clover in winter. Half the weight at mar-
keting time must have been made from pasture
or rough feed if hog raising is to be profitable.

The general management required to make
money with hogs is the same on dry land farms
as it is in the rain belt. There are two things
the raiser has to keep in view all the time, cheap-
ness in shelter and handling and feeding to make
the pig gain every day from birth to maturity.

An A-shaped house 8x8x8 feet makes a cheap
movable shelter—one house for each sow and her
pigs. In cold weather it can be covered with
straw or fodder. When pigs are farrowed in
cold weather a lighted lantern hung from the
roof will keep such a house warm.

A cement feeding floor is very convenient in
fattening. A floor 30x40 feet is large enough
for a carload of hogs. It should have six inches
of slope for each ten feet of width. Kafir or milo
in the head can be thrown on the upper side of
this floor and the hogs will work the trash to
the lower edge as they eat the grain. Hay from
alfalfa, sweet clover or Spanish peanuts can be
thrown on the upper side of the floor and the
hogs will work the refuse from this to the lower
side as they eat the leaves and finer stems. It
is easy to rake the trash off the floor because it
gathers at one side.

Hogs, to thrive, must have pure drinking
water at will. One of the most convenient ways
to provide this is to mount a barrel on a small
sled and attach to the lower part of the barrel an
automatic hog waterer, such as any good hard-
ware store can furnish. The barrel and sled can
be moved to any field where the hogs are pas-
turing and the water will be kept fairly clean.

Lice cut down the profits more than any other
one thing. Set short posts in the feed lots and
pastures. Wrap each post with an old potato
sack. Once a week soak the sack with crude oil.
A louse bites the hog, he rubs the spot on the
sack and the crude oil, kills the louse.

Make a hog bath of concrete 8x10 feet and 16
inches deep. Fill nearly to the top with wa-
ter and add a small quantity of erude oil. The
hogs will bathe several times a day and the oil
will kill lice and keep the skin healthy. Replace
the water and oil as needed.

For worms, take an ounce of Santonin for each
fifty 100-pound pigs. Mix thoroughly with slop..
Keep pigs off feed from night to the following
noon, and then give the slop.

Change feed lots or keep them clean and
sprinkled so that dust will not bother the hogs.
Large numbers of hogs on dry land farms are
kept at a loss because of dust and the coughing
that it causes.

FEEDS.

The dry land grain feeds are kafir, milo and
feterita. The cheapest way to feed them is
in the head without either threshing or grind-
ing. The fat from hogs fattened on these
feeds is whiter in color than that from corn fed
hogs. Pork from hogs fed these feeds would
command a premium if there was enough to cre-
ate a special brand. A Panhandle hog man two
years ago bought 4,000 bushels of milo and
bought hogs to fatten on it. The milo fed to
hogs brought an average return of $1.05 per
bushel. Farmers without hogs sold it at 30 cents
a bushel.

In the dryest year ever known in the Panhan-
dle of Texas, a farmer had a large field of Span-
ish peanuts. He weighed hogs into this field
and they gathered the crop themselves. They
had no other grain. When they became fat he
shipped the hogs, weighing them as they were
taken from the peanut field. He received pay for
1,023 pounds gain on the hogs for each acre of
Spanish peanuts.

Spanish peanut hay, the tops and nuts cured
together, makes a good hog feed. This feed
forces the brood sow to give a large yield of
milk, it pushes the growth of the young pigs
and combines to best advantage with kafir and
milo to make rapid gains on fattening hogs. This
hay can be kept in well made stacks and used
both summer and winter.

At the Kansas Experiment station the writer
divided a number of hogs into two equal lots
and fattened one lot on kafir and one lot on kafir
and alfalfa hay. For each 100 pounds gained by
the hogs fed kafir alone, the hogs fed kafir and
alfalfa hay gained 173 pounds. Sweet clover
and Spanish peanut hay will take the place of
alfalfa. When nothing else is available, juicy
sorghum hay saves grain and improves the con-
dition of the hogs.

Alfalfa or sweet clover pasture should be fur-
nished every pig on a dry land farm, one to two
acres for each sow and her pigs. Until the new
settler can get these crops started he can use
winter rye sown in the spring, dwarf essex rape,
sown as early as the land can be worked, and
sorghum.

Hogs need more mineral matter than dry land
feeds supply. In timbered regions wood ashes
supply this need. but are a curiosity on dry land
farms. Soft coal is profitable for this purpose.
Dump it in a dry place in the feed lots and let
the hogs eat it at will. A mixture of soft coal,
fifty pounds, common salt, two an one-half

ROCK ISLAND LINES 13

pounds, and sulphate of iron, three pounds, kept
in a shallow box where the rain cannot reach it,
is a good tonic to keep before the hogs.

A hog pushed for large gains will eat a pound
of soft coal a day and he will thrive in propor-
tion to the coal he eats, provided he is being
properly fed.

| Hens |

OOD hens, like good dairy cows, are sure
G producers in dry land farming sections and
should be one of the important sources of
revenue. <A skillful poultryman on a dry land
farm can realize $2 a year a hen above the cost
of feed. Yet on the majority of dry land farms
there is not enough eggs and poultry produced
to give the family all it wants, and most dry land
farmers claim that chickens ‘‘eat their heads off.’’
The layers in the average flock consist of a
number of early-hatched pullets and a few year-
ling hens. Besides these there are a number of
old hens, some of whom ceased to lay years ago,
several long-spurred old roosters and a lot of ac-
tive young cockerels. Such a flock with fair at-
tention will average 60 eggs a year per hen. Get
rid of all the flock but the choicest early hatched
pullets and the heavy laying hens. The average
will increase to 120 eggs a year a hen and the
feed bill will be cut in half.
Pullets from good egg laying strains will begin
to lay when six months old if they have been

~~

Spanish Peanut Plant.

pushed for growth and development and given
plenty of exercise and comfortable surroundings.
Such pullets hatched in March or April will start
to lay in October and will supply the eggs for
the high priced fall and winter markets. Year
old hens begin to lay in December and should be
laying well in January.

Males should not be allowed at any time with
the hens except when the eggs are to be used for
hatching. The hens will lay more eggs and pro-
duce them at less cost without males than with
them. At the New York Experiment Station pul-
lets without a male produced eggs at thirty per
cent less cost than pullets kept with a cockerel.
Infertile eggs do not spoil in warm weather.

SHELTER.

The general management of the hen to make
her lay is the same in the dry land districts as
in the rain belt, with one marked exception, that
of shelter. People in the dry land districts boast
that no matter how hot it gets in the day time,
they have to sleep under blankets at night. This
shows a wide change of temperature every
twenty-four hours between the hottest time of
the day and the coldest in the night. In some
districts the average change for each twenty-four
hours is thirty degrees. This extreme change
causes draughts with eastern methods of venti-
lating poultry houses. One of the sources of
heaviest loss comes from injury to the fowls from
these draughts—colds, roup and poor laying.

To prevent draughts the dry land hen house
should be built tight on the north side, both ends
and the roof. The only openings will then be
on the south side, and draughts are not possible
with openings on one side only. Through a cold
winter Prof. W. E. Vaplon had hens thrive in
northern Colorado, at an altitude of one mile,
in houses with the south front made of wire net-
ting, but there was not even the smallest hole
in the other sides, the ends or the roof.

The south front must have sufficient openings
to furnish a constant change of pure air without
draught. The air is so dry in the dry land dis-
tricts that severe cold is felt but little and it is
easy to make a hen house warm enough. It may
be made of straw packed between boards, adobe
or lumber.

GRAIN.

Kafir or milo is the staple poultry feed in dry
land districts, supplemented with wheat, oats,
millet and Spanish peanuts. In cold weather it
pays to warm the grain in the oven before feed-
ing.

GREEN FEED.

Alfalfa hay is the best green feed for winter.
Sweet clover hay carefully cured is good. Every
one who has reported says that silage makes a
large increase in the number of eggs laid during
the winter. Beets, mangels and cabbage are rel-
ished. Rye or wheat pasture is greatly liked in
the winter. A hen should have all the green feed
she will eat every day in the year.

Meat in some form every day is necessary to
secure profits. Many new settlers in the South-

14 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

west trap the numerous rabbits and feed the
meat from them to the hens. When a hen has
plenty of grain, grit and lime in shells, she is not
likely to eat too much meat if she has a daily
supply of it. When hens have gone a long time
without meat they may ruin themselves perma-
nently and never afterwards lay again if given
too much at first. A farmer’s cow broke her
leg. She was killed immediately and skinned
and the carcass drawn into the poultry yard. The
hens had been without meat for months and
gorged themselves. Some of them died, others
were sick and none of the flock ever laid well
afterwards.

Water.—A dozen fair sized eggs contain a pint
of water, and large quantities of water are con-
stantly being used in the digestion of food and
the performance of active life.

Water is in ceaseless demand in the hen’s body

supply lime cheaply. A hen needs about four
pounds a year. In some sections crushed lime-
stone can be used to supply both grit and lime. |

The hen house should be kept clean and the
hens free from lice and mites. Many dry land
houses are not cleaned oftener than once a year
and the owners find that hens do not pay. Dust.
convenient for a dust bath, whenever a hen
wants one, will keep down the lice. Take a quart
of kerosene and crush moth balls in it as long as
they will dissolve. Use the mixture to paint the
posts and nests. The heat from the hen’s bodies
will vaporize this paint and the vapor will kill
the mites. This mixture is very explosive. It
must be made out of doors and kept from all ex-
posed flame, as lighted matches and pipes. The
hen house should be given an extra cleaning
twice a year and whitewashed, the whitewash
having a little crude carboliec acid added.

Pork from Milo Fattened Hogs.

and is as essential as feed. Many well fed hens
do not lay because they do not have the water
necessary in the formation of the egg. Lack of
water is the chief cause of hens on the farm
not laying in the winter.

Water must be clean, pure and palatable and
within reach of the hen whenever she wants it.
She will not drink enough if the water is luke-
warm in the summer or when it is mixed with
ice in the winter.

Grit—Grit is the hen’s teeth and it must be
sharp. Often hens kept on stony places must be
fed grit because the pieces of local stone are so
rounding that they do not grind the feed well.

Lime.—The egg shell is nearly pure carbonate
of lime and lime is found in most of the tissues
of the body. It is as absolutely necessary to
the hen as air or feed. Crushed oyster shells

The dry land farmer usually neglects the poul-
try. It will pay him to make a business of tak-
ing care of his chickens every day just the same
as he makes a business of milking his cows. A
hundred laying hens taken care of as recom-
mended in this article will bring more money in
a year than the farmer in the western third of
Kansas gets from the average 50 acres of wheat.

The farmer new to careful poultry work should
start with twenty-five hens of a laying strain.
In a year he should learn how to handle 100
hens profitably. At the beginning of the third
year he should be able to handle 200 and get $2
a year from each above the cost of feed. Even
with 100 hens, the addition of $200 to the cash
income of the farm makes it worth while to spend
a little time each day in good care. The hens
will lay, no matter how severe the drought.

ROCK ISLAND LINES 15

JANUARY

2am:

N
\N

FEBRUARY

1
YYy_ |_|

NY
N
\

Y

\\
N

UY,

NS

YY

V7
YY)
77

ONAN

AUGUST WY l
SEPTEMBER QI. j
OCTOBER YY ZY
NOVEMBER Y YY;
DECEMBER WZ WMA

Chart Showing Comparative Monthly Distribution of Rainfall.

| The Climate

O be successful the dry land farmer should

adopt a system of farming that with his

climatie conditions will furnish a comfor-
table living in the most unfavorable seasons. He
will then make good profits in the average and
the best years.

The farmer who is located in a dry farming
district and the man who wants to become a dry
land farmer, should study very carefully the cli-
matic conditions, as they determine, very largely,
the system of farming to be adopted, the methods
of handling the soil and the crops to be raised.
The study of these conditions should be thorough.
Much of the information needed may be secured
by applying to the U. S. Weather Bureau, Wash-
ington, D. C

The conditions to consider are (1) average an-
nual precipitation, (2) the variations from the
average, (3) the distribution of the rainfall
throughout the year, (4) evaporation, (5) tem-
perature, summer and winter, and the length of
the growing season.

AVERAGE ANNUAL PRECIPITATION.

The average annual precipitation in eastern
Colorado varies in different localities from

INCHES
25

twelve to nineteen inches, in Western Kansas
from sixteen to twenty-four inches, in Western
Oklahoma from twenty-four to thirty inches, in
the Panhandle of Oklahoma from sixteen to
twenty inches, in Eastern New Mexico from thir-
teen to sixteen inches, and in the Texas Panhan-
dle from eighteen to twenty-five inches. The av-
erage annual rainfall in all these dry land dis-
triets is ample to produce profitable yields of
feed crops and with good management, good
yields of grain. The capable dry land farmer can
raise fair crops when the rainfall through the
year is ten to twelve inches, provided it is fa-
vorably distributed.

VARIATIONS FROM THE AVERAGE
PRECIPITATIONS.

The hindrance to success in dry land farming
comes from the wide variations in the annual
precipitations. The records of the precipitation
in Denver, Colo., have been kept for 42 years
and the average is 14.31 inches a year. If this
had been uniform through this period it would
have been an easy matter to have raised profitable
erops every year. In 1909 the precipitation was
twenty-three inches and in 1911 was 7.75 inches.
The failures in dry land farming come from a,
lack of ability to operate a system of farming
that will adapt itself to these wide variations,
where the margin of safety is so narrow.

INCHES
25

1
187273 74 75 76 77 76 79 186081 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 1899! 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99190001 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 I) 12 13

Annual Rainfall, Denver, Colorado.

1905 06 07 08 19 10 II 12 13

Annual Rainfall,
Tucumcari, New Mexico.

16 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

INCHES
25

20

Annual Rainfall, Amarillo, Texas.

The average precipitation at Colby, Kans., is
17.76 inches. In 1904 the precipitation was 23.73
inches; in 1910, 6.62 inches; in 1911, 10.55 inches.
The dry years broke the man who grew wheat
only. There were good feed crops every year.

The precipitation at Tucumeari, N. M., in 1905
was twenty-four inches and the new settlers
raised. good crops of corn. The rainfall dropped
to sixteen inches the next year, and the precipita-
tion in 1909 was only 10.33 inches. A large num-
ber of farmers lost all they had because they
thought 1905 was an average year and they kept
on trying to raise crops that required the heavy
rainfall.

The average annual precipitation at Amarillo,
Texas, is twenty-two and one half inches. In
1905 it was 32.33 inches. The next year it was
above normal and thousands of farmers rushed
to that district to get rich raising grain. Then
came four dry years, the precipitation in 1910
dropping to eleven inches. The majority of the
new settlers conducted farming operations on
the basis of the heavy rainfall of 1905. Large
numbers of them failed, lost all they had and left
the country. Feed crops yielded abundantly
every year except one and the silos carried the
farmers who raised feed crops over the dry year.
Every year since that country was first settled
good profits have been made from livestock and
feed crops have failed but once when handled
rightly.

Throughout the Southwest the rainfall is suf-
ficient to not only furnish the farmers a com-
fortable living, but will enable them to make
fair profits above their living if they will follow
the system of farming and the methods adapted
to the years of low rainfall.

The constant tendency, of course, is to hope
each year as it comes will be one with favorable
conditions. In wet years the dry land promoters
hold forth that the seasons have changed, that
the rainfall follows the plow and that there will
be no more droughts. The long period through
which the rainfall records have been kept at

ae 2
1893 94 95 96 97 98 99 190001 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 II I2 13

24

1898 99190001 02 03 04 05 0607 08 09 10 1! 12 13

Annual Rainfall, Colby, Kansas.

some dry land points, show that settlement and
cultivation have caused no change whatever in
the rainfall. There are seasons of heavy rainfall
and others of light rainfall now, just as there
were forty to seventy years ago. The valley of
the Nile has been cultivated for 6,000 years with
no effect toward increasing the rainfall.

DISTRIBUTION OF RAINFALL THROUGH
THE YEAR.

A study of the diagram will show that about
chree-fourths of the rainfall in the dry land dis-
tricts of the Southwest occur chiefly in the spring
and summer months, the fall and winter months
are dry. This condition makes sure those crops
which are planted in the spring, and cultivated,
such as kafir, milo, sorghum and Spanish peanuts.
The dry falls and winters make the growing of
winter wheat uncertain and frequently the rains
come too late in the spring to start spring grain.

The sure crops under this distribution of rain-
fall are feed crops that furnish both silage and
grain. The dry winters make dry feed lots and
the dry, crisp winter air gives a zest to the appe-
tites of all farm animals. It seems that nature
has planned conditions in the Southwest for a
money making livestock country.

The distribution of rainfall through the year
at The Dalles, Ore., and Sacramento, Cal., is
shown. In the Pacific coast districts the rainfall
occurs almost entirely during the winter months.
In the inter-mountain districts the rainfall comes
during the winter and spring and the summers
are dry. On account of these peculiar conditions
of rainfall, a system of wheat growing through
the aid of summer fallowing has had an extensive
development in Utah and in some of the north-
west districts of the Pacific coast. The land is
pluwed in the fall and absorbs the winter and
spring rains. It is well tilled in the summer and
in the fall sown to wheat. The moisture held by
the summer tillage brings up the wheat and
the winter and spring rains make it mature be-
fore the summer drought.

ROCK ISLAND LINES 17

This method of wheat growing in alternate
years by summer tillage is mentioned because
eight or ten years ago it was strongly advocated
for the Southwest. It was given many trials in
the dry land farming districts in all the south-
western states and proved a failure. Hven now
the summer fallowing methods used in Utah are
often recommended to new settlers in the South-
west by men who are not acquainted with the
failures of the past and the difference in the dis-
tribution of the rainfall. The summer fallowing
methods of Utah and the Pacific coast, when fol-
lowed in the Southwest, fail to save much of the
summer moisture because of the high winds and
temperature, unless cultivation is given after
every shower, and this makes the soil so fine
that in a short time it blows as deeply as it was
plowed. :

EVAPORATION.

The evaporation of moisture from the soil in
dry land districts of the Southwest is heavy and
has a strong effect in reducing the effects of the
rainfall. No accurate method of measurixz this
evaporation is in use, but the comparative evap-
oration of different districts is determined by
measuring the amount of water evaporated from
an exposed surface of water during the growing
season, April Ist to September 30th. The evap-
oration in inches during the growing season in
eastern Colorado is forty-five; northwest Kansas,
forty-five; southwest Kansas, sixty; the Pan-
handle of Texas, fifty-four. In northern Ohio the
evaporation is twenty-five inches and in southern
Wisconsin, twenty-seven. While the evaporation
from the soil is much less, these figures show the
strong force of evaporation with which the dry
land farmer has to contend and the necessity of
thorough work to hold the moisture in the soil.

Evaporation increases southward. Experts es-
timate that with each increase of three inches in
evaporation, an additional inch of rainfall is
necessary to secure equal results in crop produc-
tion. On this basis a rainfall of fifteen inches in
Colorado would be equal to eighteen inches in
the Panhandle.

TEMPERATURE—SUMMER AND WINTER.

The dry land farming districts of the South-
west have much sunshine, cloudy days are few in
winter, the air is crisp and dry. In summer the
days are warm, but the nights, almost without
exception, are cool. The dryness of the air and
the intense sunlight during the winter makes the
cold felt much less than in districts having hu-
mid air.

The result is that on an average there are more
than 300 days each year when it is comfortable
to work outdoors. The only annoying feature is
the high winds during the spring, and in drought
years during the fall. Snowfall is usually light.
The average monthly temperature in Denver is,
in January, 31 degrees; July, 71.9 degrees; Colby,
Kans., January, 28.9 degrees; July, 75.2 degrees;

Beaver, Okla., January, 33.2 degrees; July, 80.3
degrees; Amarillo, Tex., January, 33.9 degrees;
July, 76.1 degrees; and in Tucumeari, N. M., Jan-
uary, 31 degrees, and July, 68.3 degrees.

LENGTH OF CROP GROWING SEASON.

The average length of the crop growing season,
as determined by the average of the latest and
earliest dates of killing frosts, is 140 days in
northeast Colorado, 150 days in southeast Colo-
rado, 150 to 180 days in western Kansas—the
first figure being for the northwest part of the
state and the second for the southwest. In the
Panhandle the average is 180 days in the north-
ern part, increasing southward to 200 days.

Holding the Rainfall

S the dry land farmer cannot change the
aN rainfall, it is necessary to accumulate as
much of it as he can in the soil for the use
of his erops. The chief losses of rainfall in the
dry land districts are from the run off during
storms and from evaporation. The two tillage
problems ever facing the dry land farmer are to
keep his soil in such condition that it will absorb
much of the precipitation as it falls and then to
keep the surface soil in such a state as to retard
evaporation.

The average rainfall in the Southwest is suffi-
cient to produce good yields of dry land crops,
and it is the dry land farmer’s business to handle
his soil in such a way that he gradually accumu-
lates sufficient moisture to keep the soil moist
in dry years to a depth of four to six feet, and
in years of good rainfall to a depth of twelve to
fifteen feet.

The accumulation of moisture to this extent
equalizes the effect of the great variations in
yearly rainfall. The stored moisture in the soil
acting as a reserve in dry years, the same as a
bank deposit is a reserve for a business man.

It is practicable to handle dry land soils in
such a way that half of the actual precipitation
is absorbed and stored in them. After this has
been accomplished, crop failures become rare. It
may take several seasons to secure this storage
when team power and capital are light.

Deep plowing or deep listing is the most effec-
tive way of insuring the storage of the rainfall.
Many of the rains in the dry land districts are
heavy and dashing. On the unplowed prairie
most of the water that falls in such rains runs
off immediately into the draws and creeks. Land
plowed shallow will absorb some of the water
that falls in a driving rain; land plowed deeply
will absorb more. Land plowed four inches deep
has only half the capacity of absorbing quickly
the rainfall as land plowed to a depth of eight
inches.

Many of the farmers who read this article will
start their dry land farming operations on un-
plowed prairie land. How deep shall they plow?

ies __ DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

Where the man has sufficient power and can
stand the expense, I would advise using a Spauld-
ing deep tilling machine that will plow and pul-
verize the soil the first time to a depth of sixteen
to eighteen inches. Very few farmers can stand
the expense of such a first preparation. Good
judgment consists of doing the most effective
work with the power and money available.

The average man will have three good horses
and not much money. I would advise him to
break the sod first time two to four inches deep,
and cut it up thoroughly with a dise harrow.
Plant kafir, milo and cane on this shallow plowed
sod. The next season break or list the land a
couple of inches deeper and the third season stir
it two or three inches deeper than in the second
year. In this way the soil can be gradually
stirred deeper and deeper without excessive cost
and better water storage be secured each year.

A large part of the moisture absorbed by the
soil is lost by evaporation from the surface un-
less some means are taken to prevent this loss.
The sun and winds carry off the moisture from
the surface. As the surface soil dries, the moist-
ure from the lower soil is lifted gradually upward
and in its turn is evaporated unless prevented.

Where the surface soil is stirred and kept loose

to a depth of two to four inches, this evaporation -

is largely checked. The loose soil acting as a
blanket or mulch to prevent the moisture in the
soil below from escaping.

When a crust is formed the surface is made
compact and the soil moisture evaporates rapidly.
In a field after grain has been cut, the soil is
hard on the surface and often moisture equal to
one inch of rainfall is lost through this hard
surface every week during the hot weather.
When a dise harrow follows the binder, the sur-
face soil is loosened and a mulch is formed that
checks this evaporation to a great extent.

It was once generally advised to cultivate or
harrow the soil from early spring until fall after
each rain in order to keep a crust from forming
and to keep the surface soil loose enough to form
a mulch or blanket. This system has been found
to be dangerous. The level surface and the fine-
ness of the particles made by repeated harrow-
ings make the soil easily moved by winds. Thou-
sands of acres in the Southwest and tens of thou-
sands of acres on the Pacific coast have had all
the soil blown off as deeply as it was plowed be-
cause the surface soil had been kept too smooth
and fine. In many cases the blowing did not
stop when the depth of plowimg has been
reached, but kept on moving the raw, smooth sub-
soil. The surface of cultivated dry land soil must
be kept corrugated and rough.

The principle is the same as that governing the
flowing of water in mountain streams. In the
mountains of Colorado are trout streams so swift
that a man cannot hold his arm perpendicular in
the water. At the bottom of these streams fish
may be seen lazily moving upstream. It seems
wonderful that a fish can be so powerfully

muscled that he can swim slowly against a cur-
rent so swift and strong that a man cannot resist
it with his arm. When these streams are meas-
ured to ascertain the amount of water they will
supply for irrigation, the measuring shows that
the water near the surface and just below it-‘is
moving very swiftly, but that the water at the
bottom of the stream where the fish are moving
is almost still. The friction of the stones along
the bottom has checked the current until the wa-
ter barely moves. While the dry dry land farmer
cannot stop the speed of the winds, he can check
their movement and destroy their effect at the
surface of the soil by leaving the surface rough
or deeply corrugated. The dry land farmer should
keep the surface of his cultivated fields rough
and corrugated at all times when a crop is not
growing on them.

Potatoes—A Good Dry Land Crop.

THE LISTER.

The lister is one of the best implements for
keeping the soil rough so that it will not blow,
and for putting the ground in condition for accu-
mulating and holding the moisture. As soon as
a grain or forage crop is removed from the land
in summer or any crop in the fall, the field should
be disked immediately. Then as soon as prac-
ticable the land should be listed deeply. The
listed rows should not be more than three and
one-half feet between centers. Three heavy
horses with a single lister can cover eight acres
a day.

The deeper the lister is run, the better. When
run deeply it throws the land into sharp ridges,
and this stops the movement of the soil by the
winds. The loose dirt that is thrown by the
lister on the ridges acts as an efficient mulch to
hold the moisture.

The land should be listed early in the fall and
kept ridged as listed through the winter. The
snow will accumulate in the furrows and as it
melts will sink deeply in the ground and be held
there. With the average amount of snow, prac-
tically all the moisture in it will be held in the
listed furrows. Where the surface is level, the
ereater proportion of the snow is blown off of the
cultivated land. Deep furrows hold the water

ROCK ISLAND LINES 19

that falls in the autumn and spring rains until
it is absorbed by the soil.

When the winter and spring are unusually dry,
the land may be left in the spring just as it is and
the seed planted in the furrows. Even in ex-
tremely dry years the listed furrows will contain
sufficient moisture to make such seeds as kafir,
milo and sorghum germinate quickly and make a
good early growth.

In seasons of ordinary rainfall, the listed fur-
rows should be run over lengthwise early in the
spring with a dise harrow and at planting time
the ground should be relisted, splitting the
ridges.

When it is desired to summer fallow the land,
it can be listed early in the spring, and then al-
ternately be harrowed and disked often enough
to keep a crust from forming. When the listing
is done early in the spring and the seeding is
to be late, it sometimes pays to relist in midsum-
mer, splitting the ridges.

In cultivating crops planted in the bottom of
listed furrows, the cultivator shovels should be
set to run deep the first two cultivations and to
throw but little dirt against the plants. Later
cultivations should be shallow. The lister fur-
rows should be filled gradually so that at the last
cultivation the surface of the land will be level.
Most dry land farmers ‘“‘lay by”’ their crops too
early. Shallow cultivation should continue until
the heads or ears form. Often a shallow cultiva-
tion with a one-horse cultivator at the time kafir
or milo is heading will break the crust, stop evap-
oration from the soil and add ten bushels an acre
to the yield.

When oats, millet or other sown crops are to
be put in, the lister furrows should be leveled
with a cultivator or dise harrow before seeding.

| The Crops to Grow

HE sure feed crops to grow in dry land

districts are kafir, milo, feterita, Sudan

grass and sorghum, and Spanish peanuts
where they are acclimated. Sweet clover has
given good returns where it has been given a
eareful trial.

Mexican beans make a good cash crop in all
years and wheat in wet years. When the moist-
ure conditions of the soil are favorable in the
spring, early oats make a profitable crop, espe-
cially when cut for hay. Rye in most seasons
makes fair winter pasture and when spring con-
ditions are favorable will furnish one to two tons
of hay an acre after being pastured.

CORN.

Corn is not a dry land crop except on the Ar-
kansas Divide and in protected mountain districts
at an altitude of 5,000 to 6,000 feet. Corn on the
plains usually does well when well cultivated
until it begins to tassel. The hot, dry winds kill

the pollen, no kernels are formed and the crop is
a failure. About once in every four to seven
years conditions are favorable at tasseling time
and a good yield is secured. Then the land
agents cover the country to get photographs
of as many good fields of corn as possible and lay
in a sufficient stock of good ears for exhibition to
last through the poor seasons.

On the Arkansas Divide, east of Colorado
Springs, a local variety of corn has been devel-
oped that is a reliable crop at altitudes of 5,000 to
6,000 feet. The stock is short and has few leaves,
making the moisture requirements low. The ear
is borne close to the ground. In extremely dry
years, the shank holding the ear often starts just
above the surface of the soil. This corn is well
adapted to altitudes so high as to be too cold
for kafir and milo.

In the narrow protected valleys on the eastern
slope of the Rocky Mountains, seed from Ne-
braska and Kansas is planted. It makes a heavy
growth and reaches the right stage for silage be-
fore frost. The Modern Woodmen of America
have a sanitarium and farm eleven miles from
Colorado Springs. The farm is at an altitude of
6,000 feet. There were 100 acres of Nebraska

corn planted on it in 1913. The yield was ten

tons per acre of green forage.

THE KAFIRS.

The permanent prosperity of a large part of
the Southwest is dependent upon the intelligent
raising and feeding of the kafirs—kafir, milo and
feterita. There have been only two failures of
kafir in twenty-five years in Kansas and only one
failure in twenty years in Oklahoma. The fail-
ure in 1913 was due chiefly to the use of degen-
erate seed and too thick planting. Many of the
farmers who planted well bred seed not too thick-
ly secured good yields of grain, while their neigh-
bors raised fodder only.

Kafir can be recommended as the staple feed
erain for districts having an annual rainfall of
twenty-four inches or upward, and dwarf milo
for districts where the average rainfall is six-
teen to twenty-four inches. Feterita has not been
tested long enough to determine positively where
it will be profitable as a main crop. The indica-
tions are that it is adapted to sections having less
than an average of sixteen inches of rainfall a
year.

The year 1911 was so dry that thirteen counties
in Kansas produced no corn. Kafir gave a fair
yield in every one of these countries. The aver-
age returns per acre for the state were: Corn,
$7.67; kafir, $15.72. Had the corn growers of
Kansas planted kafir instead of corn, they would
have been better off in the fall by $62,000,000.

In 1912 the farmers of Kansas raised the larg-
est yield of corn per acre that they had obtained
im six years. The average value per acre of corn
for the state was $12.12; that of kafir, $13.80.

Kafir made a low average yield in 1913, the
second time in Kansas in twenty-five years and

20 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

the first time in Oklahoma in twenty years. Yet
the value of kafir raised in Kansas was $12,324.-
131, and of Milo, $1,189,643, a total of $13,513,774.
This is $134,299 more than the value of the corn
crop of the state, and there was more than five
times as much land planted to corn as to kafir
and milo.

In an eight year test at the Oklahoma Experi-
ment Station, Central Oklahoma, kafir produced
per acre two and a half times as much grain as
corn and more than twice the meat producing
value.

VALUE OF KAFIR FOR FEED.

‘Ten bushels of kafir have the same feeding
value as nine bushels of corn, for feeding work
horses and mules, growing colts and mules, beef
and dairy cattle, both young and fattening, and
mature, hogs and sheep. A bushel of kafir is
worth more than a bushel of corn for feeding
poultry. Milo has the same feeding value as
kafir. At the Kansas Experiment Station, in an
eleven year test, kafir produced an average yield
of grain sufficient to produce, per acre, 487
pounds of pork. Corn produced an average yield
per acre sufficient to produce 410 pounds of pork.

The Kansas Agricultural College, by a three
year feeding test with both beef and dairy cattle,
demonstrated that, pound for pound, silage made
from corn, from kafir and from sorghum have
equal feeding values, provided each is cut at the
proper stage of maturity, and that the choice of
which of these crops should be planted for silage
depends on which will probably produce the
greatest tonnage per acre. Over a large part of
the Southwest, kafir will produce a heavier yield
than corn. Sorghum will yield more than kafir.

In planting kafir, the black hulled white is the
best variety to plant. The dwarf milo should
be planted on the plains. No distinct varieties
of feterita have been developed, but there are
many white seeded sorghums sold for feterita,
and these should be avoided.

Dwarf kafir has been grown by several of the
plains experiment stations the past two or three
years, and the results indicate that it may take
the place of both milo and feterita as the staple
feed grain for districts in the Southwest having
less than twenty-four inches of rainfall yearly.
Dwarf kafir is as early as either milo or feterita.
On this account it requires moisture for thirty
days shorter season than the standard kafir. Its
heads grow upright, so that it is easily harvested
by machinery. It is low in height, requiring a
minimum of moisture for growing stalk. The
stalk is thick and short-jointed, withstanding
heavy winds well. It shatters little, allowing at
least three months’ time in which to harvest it
after the heads have ripened.

THE SEED.

The best yields of kafir, milo and feterita are
produced from choice, home grown seed. Where

this cannot be secured, seed should be obtained
from as near home as possible.

The character of the stalk has a strong in-
fluence on yield. Seed from good heads, grown
on plants of medium height, with thick, short-
jointed stalks, will produce one-third higher yield
than seed from good heads grown on tall stalks
with long joints.

A field of well-bred kafir, on good soil, shows
the plants of even size almost as if cut to meas-
ure. The stalks are stocky and the joints short
and the heads long and uniform in appearance.
This type withstands the winds and waits long
for harvesting without the stalks blowing down.
Seed should be selected from fields that show
this good breeding and from plants uniform in
height and type.

The center or main stem on which the head is
formed should extend well toward the tip, usu-
ally to within three inches or less of the extreme
end of the tip. This is the most important indi-
eation of a high yielding strain. If the center
stem lacks length the head should be rejected,
no matter how good the other characters.

In ‘‘run out’’ strains of kafir, where the yield
is low, it is often found that the center stem ex-
tends but half way or little more between the
base of the head and the tip. With the degener-
ate type, a thick bunch of seed stems start out
from the end of the main stem, making a loose
or fluffy head. Reject for seed every head in
which the center main stem is short.

Kafir crosses with the sweet sorghums, with
broom corn, milo, feterita and the so-called Egyp-
tian corn or desert wheat. These crosses produce
a monerel strain of kafir that cannot be made to
yield a heavy crop. Kafir with sprangly or loose,
open and fluffy heads is the result of such crosses.

Seed from the right type of head will produce
sixty to eighty bushels per acre, where under the
same treatment seed from the wrong kind of
head will produce but fifteen to twenty bushels
per acre.

There is a difference of three weeks in the
ripening of different heads of kafir and milo in
the same field. In a severe season a difference of
five days in ripening sometimes makes the differ-
ence between a good yield and failure. The
grower should watch his fields closely as soon as
the first heads appear and mark by a string or
piece of cloth each desirable early head. The
selected heads should remain on the stalks until
the crop is ripe, when a man can go through the
field with a sack and gather the marked heads.

Special attention must be given to the vitality
of feterita seed. It heats worse than kafir. With
ordinary care in keeping not over one-half the
feterita seeds will grow.

Keep the seed in the head until the day it is
planted. Hang up the heads, as soon as they are
ripe, in a place where they will be left dry and
where air will circulate around each head.

ROCK ISLAND LINES 21

Windmill Irrigation on a Dry Land Farm.

A farmer in southern Kansas bought choice
kafir seed and tested it just before planting. It
germinated well. He had planted part of a large
field when he saw a rain coming. He took the
seed not planted to the house and put it in a dry
room before any rain fell. In about a week the
rain was over and the ground dry enough to
plant. The remainder of the field was planted,
the same machine was used and the rest of the
seed dropped. The seed planted before the rain
gave a full stand. The seed planted after the
rain did not give one-fourth of a full stand. Al-
though kept in a sack in a dry room, it absorbed
enough moisture to make it heat sufficiently to
lall its germinating powers.

During the germinating period the seed ab-
sorbs moisture and begins to heat very easily.
Sometimes the heating is sufficient to weaken the
vitality only, but not to kill the seed. When this
is the case, the growth is weak and uneven. Very
often the heating is sufficient to kill the life in the
seed, and no stand at all is secured.

Seed that shows strong germination may be
kept in a dry place and yet heat sufficiently in
twenty-four to forty-eight hours to make it unfit
for planting. For this reason it is safest to keep
the seed in the head until the day of planting,
each morning threshing out enough for the day’s
planting.

There are two easy ways of threshing kafir
seed. Place a head on a board placed across a
wash tub and scratch off about half the seed with
a curry comb. The seeds that shell off the most
readily are the ripest, strongest seeds to plant.

Rub a head on a wash board. Most of the good
seed will come off quickly. Seed threshed by
either of these methods can be cleaned easily and
graded by a fanning mill or can be thrown up in
a wind that will blow away the chaff.

PLANTING.

On the plains it is advisable to list in the fall
the land that is to be planted in the spring. In
seasons of dry winters and springs the lister fur-
rows will collect all the moisture that comes
from the snow and rain and the winds will keep
enough loose soil in the bottoms of the furrows
to make a soil mulch that will hold this moisture.
If the ground is very dry at planting time the
seed may be planted in the bottom of the furrow.
Even in extremely dry seasons there will be suffi-
cient moisture in this old furrow to bring up the
plants quickly and for a rapid early growth.
When there is a good supply of moisture in the
spring the lister ridges should be split and the
seed planted in the new furrow.

Test the seed for germination before planting
and do not plant any seed in which less than
ninety seeds out of each 100 grow. Use two to
three pounds of good seed an acre in sections
having thirty inches average rainfall and about
two pounds per acre where the precipitation is
less. Make the distance between the rows three
and one-half feet.

In central Kansas and Oklahoma, one stalk to
each eight inches will usually give the large
yield of kafir. In western Kansas and Oklahoma
the stalks should be twelve to sixteen inches

22 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

apart to secure the most grain. At the Govern-
ment experiment station, Amarillo, in the Texas
Panhandle, the best yields of milo have been ob-
tained by having the stalks seven to eight inches
apart in the rows. The average annual rainfall
is twenty-two inches. In districts having less
rainfall, thinner planting is advisable. At Tu-
eumeari, New Mexico, good yields of feterita
were secured in a dry year with plants ten inches
apart in the row.

The lister or planter should be set up on blocks
and the different gears and plates tested until a
combination is found that will drop single grains
in a place and not over twice as many to the foot
as there should be plants. Cleaning and grading
the seed will help to secure even planting.

CULTIVATION.

The kafirs should have thorough cultivation.
They seldom receive it. A large proportion of
the growers of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas give
the ground little attention before planting, plant
any time convenient, regardless of moisture con-
ditions of soil and give less than half enough
cultivation. It is surprising even to those well
acquainted with the hardiness of these crops that
so good yields are secured.

The kafirs should be cultivated at least once
after they have reached full height. This eulti-
vation should be so shallow that the little feed
roots are not injured.

HARVESTING.

The most common way to harvest kafir is with
a corn harvester, cutting the stalks when the
grain is ripe. The harvester ties the stalks with
twine into bundles and the bundles are set up
into large shocks to cure. The common sled cut-
ter is used where a corn harvester is not avail-
able.

Where the fodder is not particularly desired,
a header attached to an ordinary wagon box is
sometimes used. Several growers of kafir in
northwest Oklahoma harvest the heads with the
regular wheat header, raising the platform up to
the highest possible point. Three rows are gath-
ered at a time, the headings being carried as fast
as topped into the regular header barges. In
these they are taken to the stacks.

A cheap method of separating the heads from
the stalks is to take the bundles made from the
corn harvester, let them cure thoroughly in the
shock. When ready for heading place a heavy
log across the top of a wagon box; lay the heads
on the log and cut them from the stalks with a
broad axe. Two men can head kafir very rapidly
in this way, one taking the bundles from the
shock and placing the heads on the log and the
other standing in the wagon and chopping off the
heads.

Another good way is to cut the heads off with
a knife, letting the stalks stand.

STORING KAFIR.

Kafir should be headed after the grain has be- .
come thoroughly ripe and dry. Kafir heads may
be stored in corn cribs the same as corn in the
ear. Any time during the fall or winter, after
the grain has passed through the sweat, it may
be threshed. The grain, as soon as threshed,
should be cleaned thoroughly, as dirt and trash
make it heat quickly as soon as it reaches a damp
climate. :

Threshed kafir, no matter how thoroughly
dried, is likely to heat when stored in bins, when-
ever the weather is damp. The heating is par-
ticularly bad in the spring, during the germinat-
ing season.

Kafir that is thoroughly cleaned, with a fan-
ning mill, so that it is free from trash and dirt.
ean be kept cool more easily than that which is
mixed with even a little dirt. The dirt and trash
absorb moisture and hold it and the moisture
starts heat in kafir in warm weather and mold in
cold weather.

FEEDING.

Ten bushels of kafir have the same feeding
value as nine bushels of corn for feeding work
horses, beef and dairy cattle, hogs and sheep.
Multiply the market price of corn in any locality
by ninety per cent and the result will be the feed
value, at that time, in that locality, of kafir.
Milo and feterita have the same feeding value as
kafir and should be fed in the same way.

Kafir is constipating when fed alone and in a
few weeks will get animals in such a condition
from constipation that they lose their appetites
and become unthrifty. Kafir given with a small
quantity of any laxative feed, such as alfalfa or
peanut hay, can be fed for months with profitable
results.

Horses fed kafir heads will do as much work
and keep in as good condition as those fed corn.
Horses do not do well on threshed kafir. They do
not chew the small grains sufficiently and much
of the grain passes out with the manure undi-
gested.

SORGHUM.

The sweet sorghums, usually called cane, are
among our surest dry land hay and pasture crops.
There are three varieties in general use: Orange,
early amber and sumac. The orange is the larg-
est growing variety of the three and is adapted
to the central districts of Kansas and Oklahoma.
The early amber is adapted to all the dry land
district of the Southwest except those having
twelve inches or less of annual rainfall. The
sumac has been used to a considerable extent in
the dryer sections of west Texas.

There are three methods of seeding—broadeast,
with a grain drill and in rows to be cultivated.
The broadeast method is wasteful of seed, but re-

ROCK ISLAND LINES Jo ee 3

View of Grain Field Near Limon, Colorado.

quires the least attention and is therefore quite
common. In districts of thirty inches of rainfall
or more one bushel of seed per acre is generally
used when broadeasted, and where there is less
rainfall, half a bushel. The ground is plowed or
disked, the seed sown and covered with a harrow.

When the seed is to be sown with a grain drill,
the land is prepared the same as for wheat, and
from one peck to half a bushel of seed is sown
on each acre, depending on the rainfall.

The highest yields are secured by planting in
rows three to three and one-half feet apart, drill-
ing the seed in the rows and cultivating the same
as kafir or corn. The ground may be listed shal-
low. From five to ten pounds of seed are used
an acre, varying with the rainfall, the less pre-
cipitation the less seed should be used.

When intended for hay or pasture, the seeding
should be done so thickly that the stalks will be
the size of the little finger and smaller. Sorghum
may be planted at any time after the danger of
frost is over until the middle of July, whenever
the ground contains sufficient moisture to give
the young plants a vigorous start.

Sorghum for hay may be cut any time from
heading out until the seeds get in the milk. When
planted in drills or rows it may be cut and bound
into bundles. The bundles are first cured in the
shock and then stacked in long ricks like grain.

Drilled or broadcasted sorghum may be cut
with a mower set rather high so that the stubble
will hold up the forage and let the air dry out
the underside. Soon after being mowed it should
be raked in windrows. After curing for a day
or two in windrows it should be gathered into
large cocks holding a wagon load or more. One
man should make a small stack of each cock,
placing the forage as it comes from the sweep
rake so that each forkful will turn rain. Sorghum
hay will usually keep well through the winter in
such large cocks. It is well to haul part of the
sorghum hay to the feed lot and put it in a long
rick to be convenient for feeding in case of
storms.

Sorghum should be cured so as to keep the

leaves green and the stalk juicy. It should not
be left out in small windrows until it is bleached.
Sorghum hay belongs to the same class of feeds
as corn fodder and prairie hay and cannot take
the place of alfalfa, sweet clover or Spanish pea-
nut hay. Its great value is secured when it is
fed with one of these hays or with a small ration
of cottonseed meal.

Sorghum for silage should be planted thinly in
rows three and one-half feet apart and be thor-
oughly cultivated. The seeds should be planted
at the distance apart that will produce the heavi-
est yield of grain. It should be put into the silo
when the seeds become so hard that they cannot
be crushed between the thumb and forefinger, but
while the leaves and stalks are green.

If pastures get short in midsummer, sorghum,
after it gets in full head, makes a pasture that
will keep cows giving full milk. The cows should
be well fed, either with dry feed or pasture, be-
fore being turned on the sorghum. The first day
they should be allowed on the sorghum only
thirty minutes; the second day, 45 minutes; the
third day, an hour. After that, the time may be
increased thirty minutes each day until it reaches
three hours, when it is safe to allow the cows on
the sorghum all the time.

Sorghum, when it reaches eighteen to twenty-.
four inches in height, is often used for pasture
for cattle and is usually safe. There is always
danger, though, that cyanide poison will develop
in immature sorghum, and this is a deadly poison.
It is particularly likely to develop in dry seasons
when the growth is stunted. In such eases I have
known of cattle breaking into a field and getting
only a few mouthfuls of the immature sorghum
and dying in a short time. The poison evaporates
during the process of curing and the hay is safe.

Sorghum planted and cultivated to secure the
largest growth of forage and turned under green
after the heads have developed is a great im-
prover of dry land soils. Mr. T. A. Borman, edi-
tor of the Kansas Farmer, has had a wide experi-
ence in this line and says that when a dry land
farmer raises ten acres each year to be plowed
under, the improvement is so great that in a few
years the soil seems as though it belonged to an-
other farm.

| Alfalfa

A LFALFA is readily grown anywhere in the

Southwest where the average annual rain-
fall is twenty-five inches or more, the chief
difficulty being to get a stand in unfavorable sea-
sons. Where the annual rainfall averages less
than twenty-five inches, the problem is harder.
There are tens of thousands of acres, even in
districts having twelve to sixteen inches of rain-
fall, on which alfalfa will pay well. Im eastern
Colorado there are many ‘‘dry’’ streams in which
no water runs except after heavy falls of rain.

24 ___ DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

Many of these streams have broad valleys in
which water in abundance may be secured at a
depth of from five to fifteen feet. Alfalfa on such
land lives for years, when well started, and pro-
duces good yields even in dry seasons.

On uplands, where water is 150 to 200 feet be-
low the surface, a stand of alfalfa can be secured
in favorable seasons only. In such locations al-
falfa grows well in wet years and is at a stand-
still in dry years. A successful Illinois hog raiser
located near Dalhart, Texas, on upland where it
was 180 feet to water. He found that in the dry
seasons alfalfa would not grow tall enough for
hay, but that when pastured by hogs it kept
growing sufficiently to make good pasture. He
found that in the dryest seasons he could secure
ample pasture for 300 hogs by having the pasture
divided and changing the hogs every ten days
from one division to the other.

Dry land seed is the first requisite for success
in raising alfalfa on dry land. Seed raised under
irrigation is plumper and is of stronger germi-
nating power, but usually most of the plants die
within a year when seeded on dry land. The
farmer in the Southwest should get seed raised
on dry land in his own district, or get northern
grown dry land seed from Montana. Utah seed
was especially adapted to dry jiand conditions
until the alfalfa weevil came. Now that seed is
unsafe.

Land that is to be seeded to alfalfa must be
plowed deeply and pulverized as thoroughly as
for a garden and then allowed to become well
settled. Previous to this final preparation, it
should be handled so as to kill all the young
weeds. Alfalfa fails almost every time it is
seeded in mellow ground. The soil should be
moist to a depth of four to six feet. It is a waste
of time and money to sow alfalfa seed unless the
soil conditions are right. The dry land farmer
should get the seed bed in good condition and
then if he finds there is not sufficient moisture he
should wait till another season. In one district
in western Kansas alfalfa has made many farmers
wealthy. One of the most successful of these men
tried sowing afalfa for seven seasons in succes-
sion before he got a good permanent stand.

Where the subsoil is stiff, alfalfa will often
grow well for two or three years and then begin
to die. The rots grow down five or six feet into
the raw, stiff subsoil, weaken and die. When the
stand becomes too thin to yield profitable crops,
the alfalfa should be plowed up and one culti-
vated crop grown on the land. While this crop
is growing, the alfalfa roots will rot, making the
soil loose, and air and'water will follow the de-
caying roots. The land in this way becomes sub-
soiled and mellow to the full depth of the roots.
Then reseed to alfalfa. The roots from the sec-
ond seeding find it easy to grow down through
the soil prepared by the first roots and are then

strong enough to keep growing and make a per-
manent stand.

Most dry land farmers give up after a few at-
tempts to get alfalfa to grow on sandy land. The
secret of success is to get the land compact*be-
fore seeding and keep it firm until the alfalfa
covers the ground. Mr. Frank Rockefeller suc-
ceeded in getting a permanent stand of alfalfa on
several hundred acres of land in southwest Kan-
sas on land so sandy that it drifted badly when
the wind was strong. Mr. Rockefeller fed cattle
on the field that he wished to seed to alfalfa
in the spring, scattering the feed so that all the
land was well tramped. He raked the trash
off the land in the spring and drilled in the alfalfa

Typical head from field
yielding 80 bushels an acre.

has five joints.

Interior of head from field
yielding 80 bushels an acre.
The center or main stem ex-
tends well toward the tip and

ROCK ISLAND LINES 25

without stirring the soil in any way. In the fall
he had large patches of alfalfa alternating with
spots of sand burrs. The following winter the
cattle were fed on the places where alfalfa had
not caught, giving the soil another tramping.
The trash was burned off in the spring and al-
falfa seed drilled in without stirring as before.
The second fall there was a good stand of alfalfa
on most of the land and only a few patches of
sand burrs. Cattle were again fed on these places
the next winter, and they were reseeded as be-
fore. Usually in three years a full stand of alfalfa
was secured even on very loose soil.

The time to sow alfalfa on dry land is any time

Interior of head from field yielding 15

bushels an acre. The center or main
stem has but two joints and the long
seed stems that form the tip start mid-
way from the butt.

between April Ist and August 31st, when the
soil is in the right condition.

The best results are secured by sowing with a
grain drill, using 8 to 12 pounds of seed an acre.
The seed may be mixed with an equal quantity
of bran or corn chop to make the machine dis-
tribute it evenly. It should be sown alone. So
called ‘‘nurse crops’’ use the moisture that the
young plants need.

When alfalfa is sowed in the spring it is usually
necessary to mow it two or three times during
the summer to keep out the weeds, with the
mower set high. It should not be pastured the
first year.

The only pest that
damages alfalfa is
the gopher. The al-
falfa grower should
make it his business
every spring to de-
stroy the gophers.
Take large raisins
and put in each one a
small erystal of sul-
phate of strychnine.
Go into the field
where the gophers
are working, taking
a wagon rod and a
spade handle sharp-
ened at the lower
end. Locate the runs
by prodding with the
wagon rod, when one
is found open a hole
from the surface of
the ground to the
run with the sharp-
ened spade handle
and drop a poisoned
raisin into the hole.
Close up the holes.
Go over the field in
the same way a sec-
ond time in about ten
weeks. This method
will generally free
the field of gophers
until the next spring.

Typical head from a field yielding 15

bushels per acre.

bo
for)

DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

| Sweet Clover

WEET clover has been tried on a number of
S dry land farms in the Southwest and the re-
sults secured indicate that it will become a
regular crop. It grows vigorously in a dry year
on dry hard clay land. It will produce fair yields
of hay on high land where the rainfall is too
light for most crops. Its roots grow deeply and
decay quickly when the land is plowed, adding
a large amount of decaying vegetable matter to
the soil. This is a great need in dry land soils
and one difficult to supply with other crops.
Sweet clover has a marvelous effect in making

machine to drop single seeds three-fourths of an
inch apart in the row. i

Beginners find that it takes from 15 to 20
pounds of hulled seed per acre to get a good
stand. and a larger quantity of unhulled seed.
After men have learned exactly how to manage
the seeding on their own farms they generally
sow eight to twelve pounds of hulled seed per
acre.

Most growers prefer hulled:seed. Many of the
seeds have a hard flinty covering through which
the moisture does not penetrate the first few
months after seeding sufficiently to induce ger-
mination. Wherever fall or winter seeding is
practiced about half as much seed is used as in
spring planting. It is probable that the weath-

Second Cutting Rye for Hay in Foreground and Windmill Irrigation of Trees and Shrubs in Background.
A Dry Land Farm In El Paso County, Colorado.

hard, stiff soils mellow. A few years ago a
western farmer undertook to plow some heavy
gumbo land. It was so hard he had to have a
man ride the beam to keep the plow in the
ground. He seeded the land to sweet clover,
broke it up in a few years and it was so mellow
that it was hard to keep the plow from running
beam deep.

White sweet clover has generally given the
best returns. It grows erect from three to eight
feet high. When young, the plants are often
mistaken for alfalfa, but can be distinguished by
the bitter taste of the leaves.

Sweet clover must have a firm, solid seed bed.
A stand is seldom secured on newly plowed mel-
low land. HE. G. Finnup, of Garden City, Kans.,
finds a good method of securing a stand to be
to sow ten pounds of seed broadcast in February
and let the cattle tramp it into the ground. This
is for sandy land. When this method is not prac-
ticable he seeds with a grain drill, setting the

ering the fall and winter-sown seeds get softens
the hard seeds so that they grow in the spring.

Sweet clover, like alfalfa, will not thrive un-
less its roots are supplied with the bacteria that
form nodules. In districts where considerable
sweet clover or alfalfa is grown, the soil is usual-
ly well inoculated with these bacteria through the
work of wind and washing. Where the soil is
not inoculated it is necessary to inoculate either
the seed or the soil. :

Three hundred pounds of soil taken from a
sweet clover or alfalfa field is needed to inoculate
each acre. It may be drilled in or sown broad-
east and harrowed in. Sunlight kills these bac-
teria and the soil used for inoculation must not
be exposed to sunlight. It should be distributed
over the field either on a cloudy day or after sun-
down and be covered at once.

Another method is to make a syrup of glue
and warm water and sprinkle it over the sweet
clover seeds until they become sticky. Then siit

ROCK ISLAND LINES 27

the dirt from a sweet clover or alfalfa field that
is growing vigorously over the sweet clover seeds
until each seed becomes covered with dust. Dry
the seed in the dark and sow immediately.

A large proportion of the failures with sweet
clover are due to sowing on too mellow seed bed
or lack of inoculation.

Sweet clover sown in the fall or winter may
be pastured heavily through the next season.
If not pastured it will usually furnish two good
cuttings of hay, yielding through the season from
two to five tons per acre. The second season two
cuttings of hay may be secured or one cutting of
hay and a seed crop, or the sweet clover may
be pastured until midsummer and afterward yield
a crop of hay or seed.

Sweet clover sown in the spring is usually
ready to pasture in ten to twelve weeks. When
not pastured too hard, a crop of hay is often
secured the first fall. Sweet clover plants live
but two years. Re-seeding is necessary every sec-
ond year in order to keep the land in sweet
clover. When properly handled the sweet clover
reseeds itself and maintains a continuous growth
for many years. To insure the self-seeding of
sweet clover, the mower must be set to cut five
or six inches above the ground. There will then
be enough of the lower branches left uneut to
keep up reseeding regularly. Sometimes when
the sweet clover is sown on weedy ground it be-
comes necessary to clip the weeds before the
clover takes full possession. The mower should
be set so as to cut five or six inches high in order
not to check the sweet clover. Where sweet clo-
ver is pastured through the season a sufficient
number of lower branches usually escape the
stock to provide for a continuous reseeding.

Sweet clover for pasture must be short and
succulent to be relished by stock. Stock does
not like coarse woody stalks five to eight feet
in height. Sweet clover is one of the first plants
to appear in the spring and when the animals are
turned on it early while the plants are tender
they will soon be found eating it greedily. When
it is desired to pasture sweet clover that has at-
tained a large growth, it is best to mow it and
turn on the stock when the new growth becomes
well started.

Sweet clover should be eut for hay before com-
ing into bloom. If left to bloom the stems be-
come woody and a large proportion of the leaves
shatter off. Sweet clover is rather more diffi-
eult to cure than alfalfa. It seems to be less dam-
aged by rain while in the process of curing than
alfalfa.

The most important factor in cutting sweet
clover for hay is to leave a stubble five or six
inches in height. The branches start from the
stem and a sufficient length of stem must be left
to allow enough branching to make a good yield
in the succeeding crop.

Sweet clover makes a good pasture for horses,
cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry and the hay ranks
next in value to alfalfa. ‘

| Spanish Peanuts

HE Spanish peanut has a wonderful ability
Tp to adapt itself to a variety of soils, rainfall
and climates. In 1911, in Texas and Okla-
homa many yields of forty bushels per acre were
made with forty-five days without a drop of rain
during the growing season. In the same year in
New Mexico, twenty-five bushels per acre were
grown with a period of sixty days during the
growing season without rain. In northwestern
Illinois, the same year, a heavy crop was har-
vested after a drought of forty days.

In 1913, in Oklahoma, on thousands of acres,
Spanish peanuts matured a crop of fifteen bushels
an acre during a period of eighty-eight days with
but one rain.

The great value of the Spanish peanut to the
Southwest is as a sure feed crop. An acre will
put 500 to 1,000 pounds of gain on hogs, the hogs
gathering the crop themselves. It produces a
heavy flow of milk in suckling sows and a rapid
growth of pigs after weaning. It makes the most
delicious flavored meat of any feed grown. It
is one of the best feeds for making dairy cows
give high yields. It is worth more than alfalfa
to feed fattening steers and is good for growing
cattle. It is a good sheep feed. It is one of the
best feeds for horses and mules doing heavy, slow
work. It forces a heavy flow of milk in mares
suckling colts and makes rapid growth and size in
growing draft horses and mules.

Under favorable growing conditions the Span-
ish peanut will mature in ninety days from plant-
ing. When checked by drought or other unfav-
orable conditions, it may take from 100 to 120
days from the time of planting to maturity.

The Spanish peanut has a small pod with two
small nuts in each pod. The stems grow upright,
making it easy to harvest them for hay. The base
of the plant is thickly clustered with pods and
they cling well to the vine in harvesting. This is
a great advantage. The Spanish peanut is the va-
riety generally grown for making peanut butter,
salted peanuts and peanut oil.

It is of vital importance to plant seed adapted
to the climate of the field, where the crop is to
be grown. Seed grown in the south, with a long
warm season and forty-five to sixty inches of
rainfall, cannot produce the best yields in dry
farming sections where the rainfall is twelve to
twenty-two inches, nor in the north where the
season is short. Yet many persons buy peanut
seed without knowing where it was raised and
then condemn the plant as not adapted to their
localities because the crop was a failure.

Seed grown in western Oklahoma is preferable
where the rainfall is less than thirty inches, and
it is absolutely necessary to produce a good crop
where the annual precipitation is twenty-two
inches or less. It is also adapted to high altitudes
and to northern climates.

28 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

In testing Spanish peanuts for ripeness of seed,
break the shell carefully into two pieces. When
the seed is thoroughly ripe, the inside of the shell
will be brown and covered with darker brown
spots or pits. When the peanut is not matured,
the inside of the pod will be covered with a white
lining nearly smooth. Such seed is not safe to
plant, as it will not grow if the soil and climatic
conditions are not favorable at planting time.

In the dry land farming sections, peanuts are
planted shallow with a lister. The ground should
be thoroughly warm before planting to secure
quick germination. In Central Texas, New Mexi-
co, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado, Spanish pea-
nuts are planted in rows three feet apart, single
pods, soaked and unshelled, being dropped twelve
to fourteen inches apart in the rows.

When a large acreage is planted, special pea-
nut planters are.used. With a small acreage the
planting is done with a drill or a lister, taking
blank plates and having them bored to fit the
seed and the desired distance. The soaked seed
must be planted in moist soil. When planted in
dry soil, the soil absorbs the moisture and the
seed is ruined. One bushel of seed in the shell
will plant an acre of Spanish peanuts of the thick-
ness given.

Where moles are troublesome sprinkle a little
kerosene over the pods just before planting.

The peanuts need frequent shallow cultivation.
The cultivation should begin as soon as the rows
ean be followed and should be continued at. fre-
quent intervals to the time of blossoming. After
the pods begin to form, the vines should not be
disturbed. Any cultivator suitable for shallow
cultivation of corn is suitable for cultivation of
peanuts.

The cheapest way to harvest peanuts is to cut
and cure the vines the same as alfalfa and then
turn hogs into the field to gather the nuts.

Pull the vines and cure the tops and nuts to-
gether in cocks the same as alfalfa. The hay is
the richest grown. Work horses hold their flesh
while fed nothing but this hay. The nuts take
the place of grain and the tops the place of hay.

The hay made from tops and nuts cured to-
gether is one of the best feeds for forcing cows to
give a high yield of milk.

In northwest Kansas and in eastern Colorado
it is advisable to plant a small acreage to Span-
ish peanuts and select the seed from the first
plants to ripen until an acclimated strain is de-
veloped.

MEXICAN BEANS.

The Mexican bean is a good dry land cash crop
throughout the Southwest. It stands drought
well and enriches the land on which it grows in
the same way as clover and alfalfa. The Cali-
fornia pink bean has been grown to a consider-
able extent in Eastern Colorado during the past
few years, and may become the rival of the
Mexican.

Mr. W. H. Lauck, Colorado Springs, County
Agriculturist, El] Paso county, Colorado, has paid
special attention to the raising and marketing of
Mexican beans on dry land farms. He furnishes
the following information:

The ground to be planted to Mexican beans
should be plowed well in the fall. A good seed
bed is necessary. The land should be disked once
or twice in the spring before planting, to kill the
weeds.

Beans should be planted in El Paso county
from May 20th to June 10th to get good results.
When planted earlier the beans ripen unevenly
and shatter readily. Highteen to twenty-two
pounds should be planted to the acre in rows
thirty to thirty-six inches apart, depending on
the tools for cultivation. A good bean should be
placed every four to six inches in the row. It
is a good plan to harrow ahead of the planting.
Some producers use a corn planter with special
plates and others use the regular corn plates.

After planting, no cultivating or harrowing
should be done until two large leaves appear on
the plants. Then harrow carefully to get good
results and kill weeds. Cultivate three inches
deep, using fenders to prevent covering the
plants.

Mexican beans should be cultivated four times
during the season, but should not be cultivated
early in the morning when the dew is on the
plants, or after showers, because if it is done rust
or leaf blight will start.

After the second cultivation the beans should
be hoed. If there are many weeds. a good hoe-
ing followed immediately by cultivation will kill
them. Dirt should be thrown on the weed stubs.
Don’t cultivate too close to the plants after
blooming.

An ordinary sod plow with the rods taken off
and the shear sharpened makes a good bean cut-
ter. The plants can then be piled with a fork.
One method of harvesting that is popular is the
use of a sled having knives extending from each
side runner. Rake with horse rake if there is a
large acreage to be handled. The beans should
not be allowed to get too ripe before cutting or
they will shatter easily. After raking, stack be-
fore threshing and allow time for a sweating
process.

To destroy bean beetles use a spray of lead ar-
senate paste, three pounds to fifty gallons of
water. Weevils may be kept out of threshed
beans if the beans are stored in close woven sacks.
A cheap bean grader may be made from small
mesh wire cloth and should be used to clean the

erop of pebbles, dirt and sticks.

The Mexican bean is one of the legumes or
nitrogen storing plants and should have its place
in crop rotation on every dry land farm. Larger
crops may be produced if the ground is properly
handled after beans have been harvested. The
Mexican bean crop is the cash crop of the dry
land country.

ROCK ISLAND LINES 29

“in. “li

Listed in Fall to Catch Snow

| | Wheat |

LL small grain is uncertain on the plains of
the Southwest. In western Kansas during
twenty-five years, two counties have made an

annual average of less than five bushels of wheat
an acre, and twenty-two counties have made an
average of less than eight bushels. Eastern Colo-
rado has had only seven profitable crops of wheat
in twenty-eight years. The yield of both wheat
and oats is good throughout the Panhandle of
Texas this year—1914. The last general good
yield of small grain in the Panhandle was in 1908
—a period between good crops of six years.

One of the best farmers of eastern Colorado
has never raised less than fifteen bushels of wheat
an acre; his yields have run from this to thirty
bushels an acre. He says that every wheat crop
that he has raised has been profitable. But in
eighteen years he has seeded and raised only six
erops. This farmer depends on dairy cows and
live stock to furnish his living and the steady
profits. He keeps a close watch on the moisture
of the soil. In years when there is sufficient mois-
ture in the soil to insure a good crop of wheat,
he prepares the land thoroughly and sows wheat.
In years when the moisture conditions are not fa-
vorable, no wheat is sown.

The irregularity of the rainfall on the plains
prevents wheat raising from being profitable
every year, and the methods of farming generally
followed make wheat unprofitable in many years
when good farming would secure good yields.
Two years ago, in a district of western Kansas
where wheat has been almost the only crop for
thirty years, sixty-five square miles of the land
blew off as deep as it had ever been stirred. Farms
that had been sold for $20 an acre and had good
buildings and were well fenced, were abandoned.
Their owners went to other districts to work by
the day. I investigated every farm in this blown

and Stop Soil Movement.

district and I found that some farmers did not
own a plow, and one wheat field that had not
been plowed for twenty-seven years. The last
time that a field had been plowed in that section
was nine years before the severe blowing occur-
red.

Each year the surface of the ground in wheat
stubble had been pulverized with a dise and the
wheat seed drilled into the disked land. An in-
vestigating three years ago in the Panhandle of
Texas, showed that many farmers did not own a
plow.

Nineteen hundred and eleven was extremely
dry in most districts from the Rocky Mountains to
the Atlantic Coast. Wheat was generally a failure
throughout the Southwest. That year the Kan-
sas Experiment Station harvested four and one-
half bushels of wheat per acre on land that had
been disked only and thirty-five bushels an acre
on land that had been listed deep early in July
and then cultivated or harrowed every ten days
until seeding time.

Where wheat is to be sown on land from
which grain or some other crop is removed in
June or early July, the ground should be thor-
oughly disked as soon as the first crop is har-
vested. When wheat is to follow wheat or oats,
the dise harrow should follow the binder or be
run immediately after the shocking is finished.
Early in July the land should be listed deeply so
that the furrow slices will thoroughly cover the
ridges. Then every ten days or two weeks the
listed land should be worked with either a two-
horse cultivator or a dise harrow. This tillage
should be managed so that the ground will be-
come level by seeding time. The wheat should
be seeded with a grain drill, sowing not over
forty pounds of Turkey Red per acre. When
there is not sufficient moisture in the fall to make
seeding advisable, the land can be relisted late
in the fall and kept in ridges through the winter.

Land in silage crops and well cultivated is
usually in ideal condition for seeding to wheat

30 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

in the fall, after the cultivated crop has been put
in the silo. It needs no preparation. The wheat
can be seeded with a dise drill.

RYE.

Rye is a paying dry land crop to sow when
there is moisture enough in the fall to bring it
up quickly. Sow forty pounds per acre. It may
be pastured through the fall and early spring.
It should be cut for hay when the grains reach
the milk stage. In a year of fair rainfall, rye
treated in this way will yield from one to two
tons of hay per acre.

Fall rye sown in the spring will furnish hog
pasture through the summer.

OATS.

Oats as a grain crop is even more uncertain on
dry land than wheat. In seasons of average
spring rainfall, oats make one of the best dry
land hay crops. An early variety should be sown
—Kherson or early Champion or similar kind.
They will often make a good hay crop in seasons
when the moisture is insufficient for varieties,
ripening two to four weeks later. In seasons like
1914, oats yielded paying crops of grain.

Cut the oats for hay when the grains are in
the milk stage and cure in cocks with as little ex-
posure as possible to the sun.

MILLET.

Millet is a quick growing crop. Common millet
matures in the shortest time and therefore draws
moisture from the soil for the least period of time.
German millet yields the most and is preferred
when there is an average supply of moisture.
Common millet is one of the best drought resis-
ters. Northern seed produces much the hardiest
plants. The foliage of plants from southern seed
is heavier. Sow fifteen to twenty pounds of seed
to the acre.

Cut before the seeds get hard. It is a good
plan to start cutting as soon as the heads become
fully developed.

Dugout Chicken House,

Continued feeding of millet to horses some
times causes incurable lameness. It is fairly.
safe to use for horses when cut early and only
one feed a day is given of the millet hay and
some other forage at the other feedings. Millet
is chiefly valuable as a cattle feed.

DWARF ESSEX RAPE.

This is one of the best ‘‘catch crops’’ for hog
pasture. In dry land districts it must be sown
as early in the spring as oats, or in the fall after
the hot weather is passed. When Dwarf Essex
rape is sown early it will get a good start and
is a fair drought resister. Sown in May or June,
midsummer droughts are likely to kill it. It may
be sown about the middle of September if the
ground is moist and then will usually make good
hog pasture until January Ist. It withstands
hard frosts and I have seen it alive and fresh in
Colorado under a light snow.

Drill in rows two or three feet apart, using
three to five pounds of seed an acre, and culti-
vate thoroughly until a vigorous growth is se-
cured.

| Sudan Grass

UDAN GRASS seems to be the hay plant that
S the Dry Land farmers of the Southwest
have needed so long. It has been grown six
years in the Panhandle of Texas, yielding a ton
of hay an acre in dry seasons and four tons an
acre in years of good rainfall. It has done well
in the dry lands of Kansas, Oklahoma, eastern
Colorado and eastern New Mexico.

Sudan grass is considered to be the original
type of wild sorghum and is often called the
“‘mother of all the sorghums.’’ Like the sor-
ghums and the kafirs it is a vigorous drought re-
sister and will wait a long time for rain. During
a prolonged drought it stops growing and stands
still, but it lives. When rains come it makes a
quick and heavy growth, seeming to have accu-
mulated energy while it waited for rain.

The hay is much like that made from sorghum
except that the stems are finer, about the size
of a lead pencil, the hay therefore containing a
greater proportion of leaf than that made from
cane. On account of the small stalk the crop is
easy to cure into hay and keeps well when
stacked. The plant holds its leaves well which
gives it a marked advantage in windy weather
and when it is necessary to delay cutting.

It does not thrive where the nights are too cool.
In 1914 it yielded well in eastern Colorado at an
altitude of 5,500 feet. It will probably be found
unprofitable at altitudes so high as to prevent
sorghum from growing well.

It is the general opinion of conservative
growers that Sudan grass will take the place in
the Southwest of millet and of considerable cane.
Its one serious defect for the Southwest is that
it crosses readily with the sorghums, kafirs and

ROCK ISLAND LINES 31

Sudan Grass.

broomecorn and unless eare is taken this charac-
teristic will result in mongrel seed of all these
crops on farm where all are grown.

Sudan grass is adapted to any soil that will
grow cane or any of the kafirs profitably. On
lands that will give a heavy yield of cane, a
heavy yield of Sudan grass may be produced. On
lands that will produce light yields of cane, a
small crop of Sudan grass may be expected.

List the ground early in the spring. When the
ground becomes warm, relist, splitting the fur-
rows. Make the furrows at planting time shal-
low.

Plant in rows 30 to 36 inches apart, dropping
single seeds 6 to 8 inches apart in the row, using
an ordinary kafir plate in the seed box.

Cultivate often and shallow. The roots grow
near to the surface and deep cultivation after
the plants get well started will cut off a large
portion of the roots and reduce the yield. Culti-
vate to keep the land level. The cultivation may
be done with the ordinary two-horse corn culti-
vator, using small shovels or with a one horse
cultivator having small teeth. Cultivate until
the plants cover the ground so that the weeds
will not grow.

The largest yields are secured by cutting the
plants when they first come in bloom. The best
quality of hay is produced by cutting the plants
when they come in full bloom.

The crop is handled the same as millet in mak-
ing hay. Cut and allow the leaves to become
partially wilted but not dry. Rake in large wind-

rows, cure in large cocks and then put in stack
or barn.

Where the crop is desired for seed, let it stand
until the first heads are fully ripe, then cut with
a grain binder and shock and stack the same as
wheat or oats.

Sudan grass has the same enemies as sorghum—
chinch bugs and grasshoppers.

At Chillicothe, Texas in a season having twen-
ty-two and nine-tenths inches of rainfall well dis-
tributed, Sudan grass made four cuttings of hay,
one ton per acre at each cutting. The same sea-
son millet yielded one ton of hay an acre and su-
mae sorghum six and a half tons of cured forage
per acre. At Spur, Texas, in a season of fifteen
inches of rainfall, Sudan grass yielded one and
a half tons of hay an acre.

In 1913, a year of severe drought, Sudan grass
yielded 14% to 244 tons of hay an acre in Eastern
Colorado and in the Panhandle of Texas.

The Well

S soon as a man has selected land im a dry
farming section, he should dig or bore a
well and erect a windmill. He should do

this before he builds a house. His family can live
comfortably several months in a tent in any dry
farming section of the Southwest and should do
so until a water supply is secured.

In many parts of the Southwest there is sheet
water at about a uniform depth, usually 100 to

32 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

225 feet. When a well reaches the sheet water
an ample supply of water is certain. In other
sections the underground water seems to exist
in the form of thin streams, with none under most
of the land. In such sections of the southwest a
well may furnish so much water that a large
windmill cannot pump it dry, and another well
100 feet distant furnish no water at all. In one
place on the plains, sheet water in abundance is
found at a depth of about 200 feet. There seems
to be a break in the water-holding strata along
a certain line, and beyond this no water has been
found even at a depth of 500 or more feet. The
territory where no water has been found has been
settled and depopulated several times. New men
visit the country, see the wells and comfortable
homes on the lands above the sheet water, and
think they can get the same kind of wells on the
other land.

Dry land farmers for miles have been getting
good supplies of water at a depth of 200 feet.
A new settler took a homestead about a mile fur-
ther out on the prairie, but on the same level,
and feeling sure that he too could get water at
the same depth, put up a house and a good stable
and other out buildings, broke his land and put
in his crops. Then he dug a well. He hored
down 100 feet with no indications of water. An-
other dry farmer being certain that he could get
water at the same depth as other farmers in the
same township, erected good buildings, fenced
and broke his land, and planted crops. In the
meantime he had to have all the water hauled
eight miles for the house, the teams and the
cows. After the crops were well along, he started
a well. He sunk two deep wells without finding
water, and ran out of money. The nert year he
sunk a deep well and got water so alkaline that
even the cattle could not drink it. The third
year he got a good well, but a half a mile from his
buildings. Another farmer put up his buildings

first and then dug a well, and the water was so
salty that it could not be used. Later another.
well was dug in the pasture half a mile from the

house, and good water found. i

These instances are given to emphasize the mm-
portance of getting a plentiful supply of good
water before any other expenditure is made.
First, without water the farm must sooner or
later be abandoned. Second, the buildings should
be near the well, and to be sure of getting them
there, the well must be secured first.

THE WIND MILL AND RESERVOIR.

As soon as a good well is secured, it should be
equipped with a pump and a wind mill. Most
dry land farmers make the mistake of getting a
wind mill too small in size. The wheel should be
twelve or fourteen feet in diameter.

All dry countries are windy, and a wind mill
can work most of the time. There are still days,
some times several still days mm succession, when
a wind mill will not work. If the farmer can at-
ford it, he should get a galvanized iron tank that
will hold at least tour days’ supply of water.

The wind mill should be kept running day and
night, summer and winter, when there is suffi-
cient wind. All the water should be pumped into
the storage tank and an overflow be provided at
the top of this tank to carry the surplus water to
a dirt reservoir.

A convenient size for this reservoir is seventy-
five feet square and eight feet high. The bottom
of the reservoir should be on the level with the
ground outside, so that all the water can be used.
The walls and bottom should be built of clay well
tramped down while being made. The top of the
earth walls should be eight feet wide for a reser-
voir of this size, and the walls on each side should
extend out two feet for every foot in height.

5

Milo on Left, Feterita on Right—Farm of Panhandle Agricultural Institute,Goodwell, Okla.

ROCK ISLAND LINES 33

The water may be taken out of the reservoir by
a wooden pipe eight inches square, the opening
elosed with a wooden slide. Every four feet
along the wooden pipe a collar should be placed,
six inches wide, and the earth packed solidly
along the pipe and along these collars. If the
collars are not used, the water from the reservoir
will gradually follow along the outside of the
pipe, and finally wash the earth away.

With a good well, a wind mill with a large
wheel, a tank and a reservoir, the dry land set-
tler is sure of water close at hand. With a res-
ervoir he can be certain to have a garden that
will supply the family table bountifully, and al-
low him to sell $100 to $200 worth of produce
every season.

It may seem hard at first to spend the amount
of money needed to secure this equipment, but
as it insures success, the new settler should make
this his first expense. Three-fourths of the peo-
ple who have abandoned dry land farms in the
past ten years would have stood by their home-
steads, and later have become prosperous if they
had, when they first settled, secured a water sys-
tem like the one described.

IRRIGATING THE DRY LAND GARDEN.

The wind mill should be run day and night the
year round. Jn the winter time the water should
be used to thoroughly soak one-half the garden.
Whenever the reservoir becomes full, the water
should be run out over this part of the garden.
By using winter irrigation, the wind mill will en-
able the farmer to get large yields from twice
the area. If the ground is thoroughly soaked dur-
ing the winter, and earth mulch put on early in
the spring, good crops can be raised by thorough
cultivation, without any irrigation during the
summer. On the winter irrigated land, plant in
rows, three feet apart, all the ordinary crops,
such as lettuce, radishes, peas, beans, beets, sweet
corn and flowers; at a greater distance cucum-
bers, cantaloupes and watermelons.

The ground for the garden should be plowed
deep and worked and reworked with a dise har-
row and smoothing harrow until it is fine and
mellow. -Everything, no matter how small it
grows, should be in rows extending the whole
length of the garden. Do not plant garden truck
in beds or short rows on a dry land farm. If
you do not want lettuce enough to take a whole
row, put in as much as you want and plant the
rest of the row in radishes or peas or beans. Cul-
tivate the garden well every week, using one
horse and a small shoveled cultivator. A farmer
does not usually have time or inclination to do
much hoeing.

When the plants need water, plow a small fur-
row six inches wide, three to four inches deep
near each row. Run lengthwise through this fur-
row a smooth round post. This will smooth the
bottom of the furrow, and the water can be dis-

J. C. Childs in His Field of Beans in El Paso
County, Colorado.

tributed better. Run a ditch from the pipe com-
ing out of the reservoir to the furrow and turn
enough water out of the reservoir to make a
stream as large as the ditch. A little experience
will teach you how long to run the water in each
furrow. After one row has had water enough,
turn the stream into the ditch along the next row.

Water should not come in direct contact with
the plants. If the soil is well soaked, the mois-
ture will gradually find its way to the roots. In
hot summer days, water will go nearly twice as
far if applied after sundown.

The next morning after the garden has been
irrigated, it should be thoroughly cultivated to
fill up the ditch and make an earth mulch to re-
tain the moisture. Usually, if sufficient water
has been used and the soil has been handled
right after irrigating, the crops will not need
water oftener than once in ten days or two
weeks. A little water and much cultivation se-
cures the best results.

THE GARDEN.

Mr. A. R. Pieree, seedman, Pueblo, has lived
for thirty-two years in Colorado and has paid
especial attention to the garden crops and the
varieties that are best adapted to dry land dis-
tricts. His advice has enabled many dry land
farmers every year to secure productive gar-
dens. His recommendations follow:

“On one side of the garden set a row of early
Richmond cherry trees, using two-year-old trees
and setting them fifteen feet apart in the row.
Between the cherry trees, starting three feet
from the tree, set year old rhubarb roots. Set
the roots in soil that has been well mixed with
rotten manure. Set them three feet apart. Two
dozen rhubarb plants will be sufficient for a large
family.

“‘Set a row of wild goose plum trees fifteen
feet from the row of cherry trees. The plum trees
should be set ten feet apart, using two-year-old
trees. ‘

““Next set one row of Bederwood strawberries,
the length of the garden, placing the plants six-

34 oe aes DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

Alfalfa in Rows on a Dry Land Farm.

teen inches in the row. The Bederwood needs
no other variety to fertilize the flowers.

“Between the plum trees set two-year-old as-
paragus plants one foot apart. Fifty plants are
enough to start with.

“Between the cherry or plum trees, as most
convenient, set one dozen gooseberry bushes.
Use two-year-old plants and place them four
feet apart. Also one dozen currant bushes, set
the same distance in the row. Radish, lettuce
and onion sets may be planted in any vacant
spaces between these plants and trees the first
two years. One dozen horse radish roots may
be set out eighteen inches apart in the row.

“‘Raise in a hot bed, or buy for early plant-
ing, plants of tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, and
cauliflower. Set for first use one dozen dwarf
Champion tomato plants, eighteen inches apart
in the row and one dozen each early Acme and
Peauty tomato plants thirty-six inches apart in
the row.

“In March set two dozen plants early Wake-
field cabbage and later one hundred plants of
Copenhagen market cabbage. This is the best
second early and late cabbage for dry land farm-
ers. Set cabbage plants twenty inches in the
row.

“Set one dozen Cayenne pepper plants and one
dozen Mango pepper plants eighteen inches apart
in the row.

““One dozen plants early Snowball cauliflower
twenty inches apart in the row, and treat the
same as early cabbage.

“One hundred plants of late Giant Pascal cel-
ery eight inches apart in a trench with well
rotted manure.

““Peas—Sow as soon as can be planted, Early
Alaska, one pound; Gradus, one pound and two
weeks later, Everbearing, one pound. One

pound of seed peas is sufficient for fifty feet of
row.

‘“Beets—One ounce New Eclipse is sufficient for
fifty feet of row. The young beets can be
thinned to supply greens first and young beets
for cooking. After thinning, the beets left can
be gathered in the fall for winter use.

“‘Mangels—Sow one pound of Golden Tankard
and one pound of Long Red. ‘Treat same as
beets.

““Carrots—One ounce Half Long Danvers.

“‘Lettuee—One five-cent package will sow
twenty-five feet of row. One package ‘Black
Seeded Simpson and one package Big Boston.

“‘Radish—One package each of early Scarlet
Globe, Cincinnati Market and Long White Vien-
na. In July sow one package of Black Spanish
winter radish with turnips. This radish will keep
all winter.

““Turnips—Sow as early as the ground can be
prepared one package of Early Flat Dutch. Sow
in July one ounce Purple Top Globe.

‘‘Onions—For early green onions plant two
inches apart, two pounds onion sets. Sow as soon
as ground can be worked one-half ounce Austrian
brown and half ounce Early Red Globe.

““Parsley—One package Moss Curl.

‘‘Parsnips—One package of Hollow Crown ‘will
sow fifty feet of row. Sow where the plant can
remain in the ground until spring. Parsnips are
delicious when dug in the spring after remaining
all winter in the ground where they grew!

‘‘Beans—Plant as soon as the ground gets
warm, one-half pound each Burpee Stringless,
Green Pod, and one pound Prolific Black Wax.
Thirty days later make a second planting.

‘*Sage—One package.

““Till—One package for dill pickles.

ROCK ISLAND LINES i. 35

“<Sweet Corn—Plant at one time one pint each
White Australian, Extra Early Adams and Gold-
en Bantam. This will give a succession. A little
later plant two pints of Stowell Evergreen.

‘‘Cucumbers—One package each New Early
Fortune and Arlington White Spine. Plant six
to eight seeds in a hill, thin to three or four
strong plants in a hill. Make hills five feet
apart.

“‘Cantaloupes—One package Blinns Rust Re-
sistant, and one package Burrels Gem. The
sweetest, most delicious flavored cantaloupes
raised in the world are those grown on newly
broken prairie sod.

“*Watermelon—One package Rocky Ford and
one package Klecklys Sweet.

“‘Pumpkin—One package Sugar pumpkin for
pies. Field pumpkins as desired. Watermelons
and cantaloupes may be planted side by side,
as they do not cross. Cucumbers, squash and
pumpkins must each be planted by itself.

““Squash—One package each Hubbard, Pike’s
Peak and White Bush. Plant in hills four feet
apart, six to eight seeds to the hill. Thin to
three or four strong plants to the hill. One
pound Summer Crookneck squash seed will plant
an acre and will give a large quantity of choice
feed for fattening pigs.

FLOWERS.

“*Sow one package each, four o’clocks, bachelor
buttons, candytuft mixed, cosmos, California
poppy, gillardia, hollyhocks double mixed, nas-
turtiums, petunias, phlox, sunflower, sweet peas
mixed, sweet William and zinnia. If the seed is
sown in broad beds near the house it will be
an easy matter to water the plants and with this
selection or even part of the number there will
be a constant succession of brilliant blossoms.
Flaming bush makes a beautiful plant for the
borders.

““A row of Russian sunflowers on all sides of
the garden are attractive and the seeds make
good chicken feed.

VINES.

‘“A vine covered porch adds much to the charm
and comfort of the home. Before the trees get

German Millet, Oklahoma.

large enough for shade a lattice can be made
starting from one side of the house. This will
afford a shady place in which to prepare the vege-
tables for dinner and under which to eat supper
on warm summer evenings. The Japanese hop
vine is a quick grower. One package will be
enough seed to cover a large porch. Morning
glory and wild cucumber vines are both good
for the porch. These should be planted in the
fall and will start earlier in the spring if left in
the ground all winter.

“For permanent vines the Virginia creeper and
clematis are hardy, vigorous growers and very at-
tractive. Set two year old plants.”’

TREES.

The Russian olive stands extreme drought and
heat well and is always attractive. Plant the
seed. It may be grown as a hedge or thinned
out and trimmed and grown asatree. The black
locust is the tree generally planted on dry land
through the Southwest. It grows well even in
dry years and the thick foliage is a rich dark
green. The wood is very durable for fence posts.
With all its good qualities and popularity it is
not likely to be a long-lived tree, as it is apt to
be attacked by borers when twelve or fifteen years
old.

The white elm and green ash are among the
best dry land trees and if they can be given a
little water each season, will grow for a life
time. The cotton wood when it can have some
water is a quick grower. A few mulberry trees
are very attractive to the birds.

H. N. Wheeler, forest expert of Colorado, gives
the following advice: The wind break should
consist of eight or ten rows of trees planted from
twelve to fifteen feet apart, and the trees in the
row from six to eight feet apart.

The best varieties to plant for this purpose are
Russian olive in the outer row and in the other
rows white willow, cotton wood (preferably the
native species), Russian mulberry, choke cher-
ries, honey locusts and evergreens. particularly
the western yellow pine and the red cedar.

Around the house and in the door yard may be
set lycium (matrimony vine) which will cover
dry soil and prevent blowing, flowering currants,
thimble berries, buffalo berries, dogwood, haw-
thorne and sumac. Close to the house and by
the outbuildings plant Engleman ivy, the native
Colorado woodbine, clematis and any other na-
tive vine wished.

The majority of these trees and shrubs will
do fairly well without irrigation. However, much
more satisfactory results will be obtained by irri-
gation and other shrubs can be grown which will
add materially to the beauty of the home. These
include lilaes, snowballs, elder berries, spiraeas
and roses.

36 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

MANURE.

Manure is usually wasted on dry land farms,
though the land needs it even more than that in
the rainbelt.

Manure adds to the decayed animal and vege-
table matter in the soil, increasing its holding
capacity for water. Where much manure has
been added to the soil and it has become thor-
oughly decayed and mixed with the soil, the soil
will absorb and hold twice as namelt water as soil
devoid of it.

After it becomes well decayed and closely
mixed through the soil, manure greatly improves
the mechanical condition of the land. It makes
hard lands more mellow and loose sandy soil
more compact. The manure, of course, is needed
to furnish food for the growing plants.

The best way to apply manure on dry land
fields is as a top dressing on small grains or for-
age crops like alfalfa and sweet clover. The
manure should be applied as a top dressing dur-

ing the fall and winter. The fertilizing materials
which it contains will be absorbed by the soil
without injury to crops and most of the coarse
stalks will decay and much of them be absorbed.
Twenty loads to the acre can be used with safety.

Manure applied in this way adds to the fertility
of the soil and acts as a mulch to hold the mois-
ture in the soil.

On ground that blow badly. heavy applications
of coarse’ manure or even straw to fields of
growing wheat will frequently stop the blowing.
Where the wind is strong it is a good plan to
run over the coarse manure as fast as it is spread
with a weighted disc harrow, the dises being set
nearly straight. This will tie down the trash in
places with soil and help to hold the top dressing
against the wind.

A manure spreader is one of the dry land farm-
er’s best tools when he has the money to pay for
it. This machine spreads the manure so much
more evenly than it is possible to spread by hand.

GOODLAN COL,

COLORADO SPRINGS

PUEBLO...

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Map showing rainfall and length of growing season in portion of great plains area served by Rock Island Lines

Dotted lines show number of days between last killing frost in spring and first killing frost in autumn, as compiled from U.S. government reports.
Black lines show average annual rainfall in inches, as compiled from U. S. government reports.

ROCK ISLAND LINES 37

Hogs and Alfalfa Near Amarillo, Texas.

Personal

HAVE written the articles in this
booklet for the dry land farmers of
the southwest along the Rock Island

Lines because I know what they can do.
My father moved his family to Kansas in
1875 when I was a small boy. He located
on an upland farm that had been aban-
doned because its previous owner could
not keep body and soul together on it.
We brought our seed with us from Illinois
and of course the crops generally failed.
At that time the crop failures in eastern
Kansas were as frequent as they are now
in eastern New Mexico.

We milked cows and when the drought
killed the crops, the prairie grass sup-
plied enough feed for a fair yield of milk.
Every week my mother drove seventeen
miles to town and sold the butter for 10
cents a pound. Think how we would have
prospered had present prices prevailed!

The first brood sow was bought on
eredit from a man whose crops had failed
and he sold her because he had nothing
to feed her. We paid for her with but-
ter money. We had rye bread all one win-
ter, because all other grain failed, and we
had to go twenty miles to a grist mill to
have the rye ground for toll.

Kafir and milo were unknown and no-
body knew anything about the science
of saving moisture. We had to grope in
the dark and tried more things that
failed than we did those that succeeded.
When we found anything that paid we
stuck to it. Always the dairy cows and
the prairie grass furnished an income.
We milked scrub cows because we could
not afford any other kind. It was ten
years before we felt able to even buy a
pure bred bull. But every cow that we
milked was a profitable one. My father
was a good judge of cows. We lived in
a range country of beef cattle. He would
ride around among the herds of beef
cattle until he found a cow of strong dairy
type. Usually she had some Shorthorn
blood. The beef men were glad to sell
us such cows because they were not as
smooth as the other catile.

After we learned how to handle the
soil, got well bred acclimated seed and
the calves grew up into a good sized
herd, we gradually dropped dairying and
changed the herd to beef cattle, making
the income from steers, pigs and horses.
It was the dairy cows though and the
prairie grass that put us on our feet.

38 DRY LAND FARMING IN THE SOUTHWEST

On that upland farm, once abandoned
and where “nobody could make a living,”
my father furnished a good home and a
comfortable living. Every one of his nine
children were graduated from the Kan-
sas Agricultural College, their expenses
paid from the income from that farm.

For nine years I had charge of the field
and feeding work of the Kansas Experi-
ment Station, making a specialty of rais-
ing drought resisting crops and feeding
them to get the greatest returns in meat
and milk. During that time I visited
thousands of dry land farms in Kansas,
studying their owners’ methods and the
successes and failures. For four years
I had charge of the Farmers’ Institute
of the Colorado Agricultural College and
spent much time every year with the dry
land farmers. Since becoming agricul-
turist of the Rock Island Lines, I have
had the opportunity to meet hundreds
of successful as well as unsuccessful dry
land farmers in Colorado, Kansas, Okla-
homa, Texas and New Mexico and watch
their work.

In all these years and in every place
in the large area that I have studied, the

dairy farmer who intelligently selected
and fed the right kind of cows and whose
chief crops were drought resisting feed
crops, has succeeded. The man who de-
pended upon grain has failed. Most of
the dry land country of the Southwest
has been settled and depopulated four
times—the grain growers rushing in by
thousands in wet years and dragging out
“broke” in dry years. Every one of these
periods has left an increase in the farm
population because the men who raised
live stock and not grain alone made mon-
ey every year, wet or dry, and they
stayed.

With this personal experience and these
years of observation of dry farming in
five states I know that the average 320-
acre tract in the dry farming districts
served by the Rock Island Lines is suf-
ficient, when managed rightly as a dairy
farm, to make a comfortable living and
to furnish a good and regular cash in-
come for a large family.

Mi @et be 2Q

Agricultural Commissioner, Rock Island Lines.

Kafir Field in Western Oklahoma.

To Farmers and Homeseekers

The services of the Agricultural Department
of Rock Island Lines are available to farmers
in our territory, or to those intending to settle
in the country contiguous to our lines. This de-
partment is in charge of Prof. H. M. Cottrell,
formerly connected with Kansas and Colorado
agricultural colleges, who has been familiar with
conditions in the Plains region for many years.
He is the author of the following standard agri-
cultural bulletins, which may be had free on ap-
plication to the undersigned:

How to Double the Yield of Corn.
How to Make Money Dairying.

How to Double the Yield of Potatoes.
How to Make Poultry Pay.

He also supervises the issuance of the South-
west’ Trail, our monthly agricultural journal,
which takes up each month a separate subject of
interest to farmers in our territory, or those in-
tending to become producers. This paper is sent
free on application.

Descriptive state pamphlets are available free
on the following sections: Arkansas, Louisiana,
Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Mis-
souri and Kansas. Correspondence invited re-
garding the farming opportunities’ in these
states. Address all communications to

L. M. ALLEN,
Passenger Traffic Manager,
Room 718 La Salle Station, Chicago, Ills.

PASSENGER REPRESENTATIVES

Amarillo, Tex., C. R. I. & G. R’y ..J. I. JoHNSON......... General Agent
Atlanta, Ga., 411 Peters Bldg.. H. H. Hunv. . District Passenger Agent
Boston, Mass. -, 288 Washington s S.L. Parrott, Gen’l New England Agt.
Buffalo, N. Y., 297 Main St R.S. Granam, District Passenger ‘Agt.

Burlington, Towa........ L. Cook. City Pass. & Tkt. ‘Agt.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Joun G. Fanmen,Gen’l Agt.Pass. Dept.

Cotuns...Tray. Passenger Agent

L.H.McCormickx, Gen’! Agt.Pass.Dept.

Chattanooga, Tenn., Daten Hotel Bldg
Chicago, Ill., "Adams and Dearborn Sts
Cincinnati, Ohio, 38 East 4th St.. H. I. McGuire, Dist. Passenger Agent
Cleveland, Ohio, 515 Hippodrome Bldg .F. A. Haas. . District Passenger Agent
Colorado Springs, Colo.,2 Pike’s Peak AveR.S.T ORRINGTON, City Passenger Agt.
Dallas, Tex., C R.1&G R’y, Cor. Com-

merce and Field Sts
Davenport, Iowa......
Denver, Colo., 16th and
Des Moines, Iowa, 401 Central Life B

423 Walnut St.

El Paso, Tex., E. ee
Fort Worth, Tex C. R

.City Passenger Agent
Gen’l Agt. Pass. Dept.

......General Agent
sst. Gen’l. Pass Agent
. City Passenger Agent
c: Gisnnent .Dist. Passenger Agt.
“-RicHARD WARREN..... General Agent

h

V.N. Turpin... .City Passenger Agent
.W. M. ANDERSON, City Passenger Agt.
615 Merchants Bank
540000 abo CARO OTR ARETE J F. Powers. ..Dist. Passenger Agent
Kansas City, Mo., Cor. 9th and Main Sts..C. W. Joners, Gen’! Agent Pass. Dept.
Leavenworth, Kan., 424 Delaware St. otk M. ALLEN..... .General Agent

Memphis, Tenn., Peabody Hotel.......... F. M. Grirrira. .Dist. Passenger Agt.
Minneapolis, Minn., 201 Metropo Life

GSO Warner, Asst.Gen’l Pass.Agt

Harwaway..Dist. Pass. Agent
Nashville, Tenn., 241 N. Fourth Ave...... p SENVVEEVER eer eet Dist. Pass. Agent
New York,N.Y., 1338 Broadway,Cor.31st St.K. E. Patmer, Gen’l East. Pass. Agt.
Oakland, Cal., 1226 Broadway............ P. A. Ziecenruss..Frt. & Pass. Agt.
Oklahoma City, Okla., 1009 Colcord Bldg.Fay THompson. Div. Passenger Agent
Omaha, Neb., 1323 Farnum St............. foal Del Ue Wee aca omer General Agent
J.S. McNatry..Div. Passenger Agent

Peoria, Ill., Rock Island Depot..........-.. Hal BATES eee General Agent

Jefferson) Hoteles lacie scleral WARREN Cow es. . Div. Passenger Agt.
Philadelphia, Pa., 1019 Chestnut St...... H. M. Brown Dist. Passenger Agent
Pittsburgh, Pa., 527 Smithfield St........ J. R. Cautiy...Dist. Passenger Agent
Portland, Ore., MMAEhirdiSts koe M. J. Grany..Gen’l Agent Pass. Dept.
Pueblo, Golo., 226 North Main St......... J. EB. Witter. .City Passenger Agent
Rock Island, Ill F. wh PLUMMER........ Ticket Agent

St. Joseph, Mo., 6th and Edmond Sts....J. J. Goopnrica. . City Passenger Agent

St. Louis, Mo., 1225 Central National Bz nk. %. ANnpDERSON Dist. Passenger Agt.
Blde., 703 Olive St......... Jeasnconce W.J.HENNESSEY,City Pass.& Tkt. Agt.
St.Paul, Minn., 379 New Robert St........ R. L. Tristen.. .City Passenger Agent

SB CUaDOLLO: Cal., Cal. Fruit Exchange

Bd Bie anne oe nero ne ere ees J.D. McGitt...... Frt. & Pass. Agent
Salt reps City, Utah, 404-5 New WalkerBk.R. D. Statey...Traveling Pass. Agent
San Francisco, Cal., 691 Market Street,F. W. Tuompson. .Gen’l Western Agt.

Hearst Bide at oh AN A es C. A. RuTrHERFORD. .. Dist. Pass. Agent

Lincoln, Neb., 1141 ONG ROME ee _H. Barnes. . . City Passenger Agent Seattle, Wash., 712 Second Ave........... Geo. P. CAvE......... General Agent
Little Rock, Ark. 5 pAel fd McLean Sts. te B. Stoar...Asst. General Pass. Agt. Spokane, Wash., 412 Columbia Bldg...... W.S. WILLIAMS....... General Agent
111 W. Second St.......0.0..000eesee es P. CG. Ricnarpson...City Pass. Agent Topeka, Kam.........................0000+ C. E. Bascom. .. . City Passenger Agent
London, Eng., 29-31 Cockspur St., S. W...Auex. Jackson, .Gen’l European Agt. Waterloo, Iowa...........................- C. A. BarTon..... BARU e aa ROBB Agent
Los Angeles, Gal., 519 S. Spring She aes J. L. Stanton, District Passenger Agt. Wichita, RTOs eon ote pete EEE: Z. E. Brooks, ..City Passenger Agent
OFICIALS—ROCK ISLAND LINES
W. J. LEAHY - - - - - - - General Passenger Agent, Chicago =
GEO. H. LEE - - - - - - General Passenger Agent, St. Louis Rock
J. A. STEWART - - - - - - - General Passenger Agent, Topeka Island

H. M. COTTRELL - - 2 =
A. T. STEINEL - - = = S

- Agricultural Commissioner, Chicago

- - General Immigration Agent, Chicago

L. M. ALLEN, Passenger Traffic Manager
CHICAGO

V-822—26M. 1-15

HILLISON & ETTEN CO., CHICAGO

i,