hree
crops in a year sometimes result, and sometimes five crops of alfalfa in
the Southwest. Here we come to the highest development of intensive
farming where the utmost value of agricultural science has free play and
rivals the results of research and skill in any other line of human
effort.

_Dry Farming Possibilities_

Wonderful as these irrigation projects are, we must not fail to notice
that this method of reclaiming arid lands can only be used where there are
mountains, rivers or water courses which can be tapped. Ultimately an area
as large as New England and New York State will probably be blessed by
irrigation. But this is only a small fraction of the arid West. How shall
the rest be reclaimed from the desert? Obviously by some method of dry
farming, depending on and conserving the meager rain-fall.

A few simple principles have been discovered, and some specialized
machinery developed, by which successful dry farming is now conducted on
an extensive scale along the arid plains between the Missouri river basin
and the Sierra Nevada mountains. In brief these principles are: deep
plowing, sub-soil packing, intensive cultivation, maintaining a fine dust
mulch on the surface, the use of drought-resisting grains, especially
certain varieties of wheat, allowing the land to lie fallow every other
year to store moisture, and keeping a good per cent. of humus (vegetable
matter) in the soil to resist evaporation. In every possible way the dry
farmer conserves moisture. The dry mulch is particularly effective. Only a
few years ago it was discovered that by capillary attraction much of the
water absorbed by the spongy soil during a rain is lost by rapid
evaporation, coming to the surface, just as oil runs up a wick. But by
stirring the surface the "capillary ducts" are broken up and the moisture
tends to stay down in the sub soil; for the two inches of dust mulch on
the surface acts like a blanket, protecting the precious moisture from the
dry winds.

III. Some Results of Scientific Farming.

_Agriculture Now a Profession_

In such a brief treatment it is not to be expected that the writer could
do justice to the subject of modern agriculture. In fact there has been
little reference to the topic of general farming in this chapter. In its
main outline it is a familiar topic and requires little attention here.
The descriptions of certain varieties of specialized agriculture have been
given as illustrations of the