The production of
oil was so great that from one town it was piped to the nearest
shipping port. This historical fact is borne out by the present
revival of olive culture in Tunis, mentioned in Chapter XII.
Moreover, many of the primitive peoples of to-day, the Chinese,
Hindus, Mexicans, and the American Indians, are cultivating large
areas of land by dry-farm methods, often highly perfected, which
have been developed generations ago, and have been handed down to
the present day. Martin relates that the Tarahumari Indians of
northern Chihuahua, who are among the most thriving aboriginal
tribes of northern Mexico, till the soil by dry-farm methods and
succeed in raising annually large quantities of corn and other
crops. A crop failure among them is very uncommon. The early
American explorers, especially the Catholic fathers, found
occasional tribes in various parts of America cultivating the soil
successfully without irrigation. All this points to the high
antiquity of agriculture without irrigation in arid and semiarid
countries.
Modern dry-farming in the United States
The honor of having originated modern dry-farming belongs to the
people of Utah.
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