ntific farming"
would perhaps be a better name, for the same principles that are
absolutely necessary here will greatly increase the yield anywhere. The
most important principle is to conserve every particle of moisture in
the soil. It is necessary to go deep into the soil to find the
underlying moisture. The seed-bed is made very deep. Plowing is from
sixteen to nineteen inches deep, while in well-watered regions it is
only about six inches. This deep seed-bed is thoroughly cultivated to
make the soil porous, the soil being reduced to a fine powder. After
sowing the seed, the ground is packed as solidly as possible. This is
done by especially designed machines. The surface of the soil is kept
broken all the time to prevent the escape of the moisture. This rule
applies equally to all soils in dry weather, and will often save a crop
of corn in any part of the country during a drought.

These are simple rules, but the practice of them is opening up the great
semi-arid regions, not of the United States only, but of the whole
earth. Western Canada, a large part of Australia, the Kalahari Desert of
Africa, and many parts of Asia, which are all semi-arid, will in time
become productive instead of barren.

It must be remarked that the grains of the East could not
withstand the severe winters in a large part of the Northwest, so
the Department of Agriculture sent men all over the world to find
drought-and-cold-resisting grains. They found a hard winter wheat, the
most nutritious in existence, which is now growing all the way from the
Dakotas to the Pacific Ocean, producing crops far above the yield of the
eastern states. 50,000,000 bushels of this wheat was raised in 1907.

The soil is the natural disintegrated rock, rich in the mineral
elements, but lacking in decayed vegetable matter. The crops soon
exhaust the nitrogen, and as clover and the common alfalfas can not grow
there, the problem of finding legumes has been the most serious one
facing this new region; but in Siberia the Agricultural Department has
recently found a new clover and three varieties of alfalfa that will
stand the cold, and Secretary Wilson believes that these will solve the
problem.

Every acre brought under cultivation adds to the world's food supply.
Can we even dream of what it will mean when 200,000,000 acres are added
to the farm lands of this continent? It means prosperity for the farmers
themselves, homes for those who are now crowded in citie