In the last column of the table are shown the annual yields of wheat obtained on the farm of Commissioner Motherwell of the province of Saskatchewan.  This private farm is located some twenty-five miles away from Indian Head, and the rainfall records of the experimental farm are, therefore, only approximately accurate for the Motherwell farm.  The results on this farm may well be compared to the Barnes results of Utah, since they were obtained on a private farm.  During the period of nineteen years good crops were invariably obtained; even during the very dry year of 1894, a yield of twenty-four bushels of wheat to the acre was obtained.  Curiously enough, the lowest yields of fifteen and sixteen bushels to the acre were obtained in 1907 and 1908 when the precipitation was fairly good, and must be ascribed to some other factor than that of precipitation.  The record of this farm shows conclusively that with proper farming there is no need to fear the year of drouth.

The Utah drouth of 1910

During the year of 1910 only 2.7 inches of rain fell in Salt Lake City from March 1 to the July harvest, and all of this in March, as against 7.18 inches during the same period the preceding year.  In other parts of the state much less rain fell; in fact, in the southern part of the state the last rain fell during the last week of December, 1909.  The drouth remained unbroken until long after the wheat harvests.  Great fear was expressed that the dry-farms could not survive so protracted a period of drouth.  Agents, sent out over the various dry-farm districts, reported late in June that wherever clean summer fallowing had been practiced the crops were in excellent condition; but that wherever careless methods had been practiced, the crops were poor or killed.  The reports of the harvest in July of 1910 showed that fully 85 per cent of an average crop was obtained in spite of the protracted drouth wherever the soil came into the spring well stored with moisture, and in many instances full crops were obtained.

Over the whole of the dry-farm territory of the United States similar conditions of drouth occurred.  After the harvest, however, every state reported that the crops were well up to the average wherever correct methods of culture had been employed.

These well-authenticated records from true semi-arid districts, covering the two chief types of winter and summer precipitation, prove that the year of drouth, or the driest year in a twenty-year period, does not disturb agricultural conditions seriously in localities where the average annual precipitation is not too low, and where proper cultural methods arc followed.  That dry-farming is a system of agricultural practice which requires the application of high skill and intelligence is admitted; that it is precarious is denied.  The year of drouth is ordinarily the year in which the man failed to do properly his share of the work.

CHAPTER XVIII