Wherever the summer rainfall is sufficient to mature a crop,
fallowing for the purpose of storing moisture in the soil is
unnecessary; the only value of the fallow year under such conditions
would be to set free fertility. In the Great Plains area the
rainfall is somewhat higher than elsewhere in the dry-farm territory
and most of it comes in summer; and the summer precipitation is
probably enough in average years to mature crops, providing soil
conditions are favorable. The main considerations, then, are to keep
the soils open for the reception of water and to maintain the soils
in a sufficiently fertile condition to produce, as explained in
Chapter IX, plants with a minimum amount of water. This is
accomplished very largely by the year of hoed crop, when the soil is
as well stirred as under a clean fallow.
The dry-farmer must never forget that the critical element in
dry-farming is water and that the annual rainfall will in the very
nature of things vary from year to year, with the result that the
dry year, or the year with a precipitation below the average, is
sure to come. In somewhat wet years the moisture stored in the soil
is of comparatively little consequence, but in a year of drouth it
will be the main dependence of the farmer.
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