In the more or less rainless regions of China,
Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, Mexico, and Peru, the greatest cities
and the mightiest peoples flourished in ancient days. Of the great
civilizations of history only that of Europe has rooted in a humid
climate. As Hilgard has suggested, history teaches that a high
civilization goes hand in hand with a soil that thirsts for water.
To-day, current events point to the arid and semiarid regions as the
chief dependence of our modern civilization.
In view of these facts it may be inferred that dry-farming is an
ancient practice. It is improbable that intelligent men and women
could live in Mesopotamia, for example, for thousands of years
without discovering methods whereby the fertile soils could be made
to produce crops in a small degree at least without irrigation.
True, the low development of implements for soil culture makes it
fairly certain that dry-farming in those days was practiced only
with infinite labor and patience; and that the great ancient nations
found it much easier to construct great irrigation systems which
would make crops certain with a minimum of soil tillage, than so
thoroughly to till the soil with imperfect implements as to produce
certain yields without irrigation.
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