The careful observations made by Grace, in Utah, lead to
the belief that, under the conditions prevailing in the
intermountain country, one man with four horses and a sufficient
supply of machinery can farm 160 acres, half of which is
summer-fallowed every year; and one man may, in favorable seasons
under a carefully planned system, farm as much as 200 acres. If one
man attempts to handle a larger farm, the work is likely to be done
in so slipshod a manner that the crop yield decreases and the total
returns are no larger than if 200 acres had been well tilled.
One man with four horses would be unable to handle even 160 acres
were it not for the possession of modern machinery; and dry-farming,
more than any other system of agriculture, is dependent for its
success upon the use of proper implements of tillage. In fact, it is
very doubtful if the reclamation of the great arid and semiarid
regions of the world would have been possible a few decades ago,
before the invention and introduction of labor-saving farm
machinery. It is undoubtedly further a fact that the future of
dry-farming is closely bound up with the improvements that may be
made in farm machinery.
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