Macaroni wheat will grow with ten inches of rainfall, and yield fifteen bushels to the acre.  This however is less than the average wheat yield in the United States.

Much can be done by dry farming; that is, by plowing the soil very deep and cultivating six or eight times a season, thus retaining all the moisture for the crops and reducing evaporation to a minimum.

There are thousands of acres in different sections of Montana that grow good crops without irrigation.  In Fergus County, for instance, the wonderful yield of 45 bushels of wheat per acre is grown without irrigation.  Heavy crops of grain and vegetables are grown in the vicinity of Great Falls by the dry farming system.

The money and time spent in spraying is also well invested.  The New York Agricultural Experiment Station began a ten-year experiment in potato-spraying to determine how much the yield can be increased by spraying with Pyrox or with Bordeaux mixture.

In 1904 the gain due to spraying was larger than ever before.  Five sprayings with Bordeaux increased the yield 233 bushels per acre, while three sprayings increased it 191 bushels.  The gain was due chiefly to the prolongation of growth through the prevention of late blight.  The sprayed potatoes contained one ninth more starch and were of better quality.

The average increase of profit per acre from spraying potatoes was figured to be about $22 on each acre.  The result was arrived at from experiment, two thirds of which was by independent farmers.  (Particulars will be found In Bulletin No. 264, issued by the Department.)

In fourteen farmers’ business experiments, including 18 acres of potatoes, the average gain due to spraying was 62-1/2 bushels per acre, the average total cost of spraying 93 cents per acre; and the average net profit, based on the market price of potatoes at digging time, $24.86 per acre.

“One class of gardeners,” Burnet Landreth explains, “may be termed experimental farmers, men tired of the humdrum rotation of farm processes and small profits, men looking for a paying diversification of their agricultural interests.  Their expenses for appliances are not great, as they have already on hand the usual stock of farm tools, requiring only one or two seed drills, a small addition to their cultivating implements, and a few tons of fertilizers.  Their laborers and teams are always on hand for the working of moderate areas.  In addition to the usual expense of the farm, they would not need to have a cash capital of beyond 20 to 25 dollars per acre for the area in truck.”