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Widtsoe, John Andreas, 1872-1952

"Dry-Farming : a System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low Rainfall"

This group
includes Red Kafir, White Kafir, Black-hulled White Kafir, and White
Milo, all of which are valuable for dry-farming. The Durras are
grown almost exclusively for seed and include Jerusalem corn, Brown
Durra, and Milo. The work of Ball has made Milo one of the most
important dry-farm crops. As improved, the crop is from four to four
and a half feet high, with mostly erect heads, carrying a large
quantity of seeds. Milo is already a staple crop in parts of Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, and New Mexico. It has further been shown to be
adapted to conditions in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Colorado, Arizona,
Utah, and Idaho. It will probably be found, in some varietal form,
valuable over the whole dry-farm territory where the altitude is not
too high and the average temperature not too low.
It has yielded an average of forty bushels of seed to the acre.
Lucern or alfalfa
Next to human intelligence and industry, alfalfa has probably been
the chief factor in the development of the irrigated West. It has
made possible a rational system of agriculture, with the live-stock
industry and the maintenance of soil fertility as the central
considerations.


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