natural cistern below he can view a long succession of sunny days not only with composure but with glee. In any event it is a great thing to possess control of your water supply, that moisture may be applied with regularity instead of fitfully as Nature so often applies it, tempests and drouths alternating. I introduce, in conclusion, a couple of problems relating to "Campbellism," touching which, it is just to say, some difference of opinion exists among experts. The first is this: With how little rainfall can dry farming be successfully carried on? Obviously there must be some precipitation. or else this form of agriculture must fail, must give way to irrigation when that is possible or cede the field to cattle or despair. No one advocates dry farming for southern Utah and Nevada or southeastern California, where, over vast ranges, only 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 inches of rain fall in a year. The fall must be greater than this or you must irrigate. Good authorities maintain that water equivalent to 12 inches of rainfall must pass up through the stalks of an ordinary wheat, rye, oats, or grass crop out into the air in order to mature the plants-12 inches, even if none evaporates in vain, and more than this through corn. When good crops are ripened under less. than 12 inches of rain, the capillary action made possible by the proper preparation of the land, or capillarism helped by such pressure as lifts water in some artesian wells, has been able to draw up subterranean waters within reach of the plant roots. This explanation is reasonable, as the operation. described does doubtless go on in very many fields. In other words, it is possible that a rank crop requiring 12 inches may grow under a precipitation of but seven. It does not follow, however, that dry culture can be triumphantly practiced in all places of but 7-inch precipitation. Whether it will do in such a locality will depend on the presence not too far underground of Dakota sandstone or other aqueous rock. Such aqueous substrata are near enough to be available in very many localities, but they are not available everywhere. If, therefore, precipitation falls much below 15 inches the precept would be: Prospect for subterranean water. If you find none or find it only very far down, you must irrigate. The other moot point which I will name relates to the practice of fallowing land, letting it rest every other year, diligently cultivated all the time, but without planting or sowing. This usage Mr. Campbell recommends for areas of low rainfall as a means of massing two years' rain for use in a single year's crop. Such massing is by proper cultivation to a great extent possible. Moreover, where it is necessary—that is, in regions of very scanty rain-it would, so far as water supply is concerned, be also desirable. But fallowing with Campbellite culture, while nobly conserving water, appears to waste fertility, particularly nitrogen, which rapidly escapes from a naked surface, while crops of clover or alfalfa draw it from the air and store it in the soil, being a net benefit |