New crops and varieties should besought for the irrigated
farms. On the dry-farms should be grown the crops that can be
handled in a large way and at a small cost per acre, and that yield
only moderate acre returns. By such cooperation between irrigation
and dry-farming will the regions of the world with a scanty rainfall
become the healthiest, wealthiest, happiest, and most populous on
earth.
CHAPTER XIII
THE COMPOSITION OF DRY-FARM CROPS
The acre-yields of crops on dry-farms, even under the most favorable
methods of culture, are likely to be much smaller than in humid
sections with fertile soils. The necessity for frequent fallowing or
resting periods over a large portion of the dry-farm territory
further decreases the average annual yield. It does not follow from
this condition that dry-farming is less profitable than humid-or
irrigation-farming, for it has been fully demonstrated that the
profit on the investment is as high under proper dry-farming as
under any other similar generally adopted system of farming in any
part of the world. Yet the practice of dry-farming would appear to
be, and indeed would be, much more desirable could the crop yield be
increased.
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