Plants possess a marvelous power of
adaptation to environment, and this power becomes stronger as
successive generations of plants are grown under the given
conditions. Thus, plants which have been grown for long periods of
time in countries of abundant rainfall and characteristic humid
climate and soil yield well under such conditions, but usually
suffer and die or at best yield scantily if planted in hot rainless
countries with deep soils. Yet, such plants, if grown year after
year under arid conditions, become accustomed to warmth and dryness
and in time will yield perhaps nearly as well or it may be better in
their new surroundings. The dry-farmer who looks for large harvests
must use every care to secure varieties of crops that through
generations of breeding have become adapted to the conditions
prevailing on his farm. Home-grown seeds, if grown properly, are
therefore of the highest value. In fact, in the districts where
dry-farming has been practiced longest the best yielding varieties
are, with very few exceptions, those that have been grown for many
successive years on the same lands.
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