Columbia River Basin

The Columbia River Basin includes the state of Washington, most of Oregon, the northern and central part of Idaho, western Montana, and extends into British Columbia.  It includes the section often called the Inland Empire, which alone covers some one hundred and fifty thousand square miles.  The chief dry-farm crop of this region is wheat; in fact, western Washington or the “Palouse country” is famous for its wheat-producing powers.  The other grains, potatoes, roots, and vegetables are also grown without irrigation.  In the parts of this dry-farm district where the rainfall is the highest, fruits of many kinds and of a high quality are grown without irrigation.  It is estimated that at least two million acres are being dry-farmed in this district.  Dry-farming is fully established in the Columbia River Basin.  One farmer is reported to have raised in one year on his own farm two hundred and fifty thousand bushels of wheat.  In one section of the district where the rainfall for the last few years has been only about ten or eleven inches, wheat has been produced successfully.  This corroborates the experience of California, that wheat may really be grown in localities where the annual rainfall is not above ten inches.  The most modern methods of dry-farming are followed by the farmers of the Columbia River Basin, but little attention has been given to soil-fertility, since soils that have been farmed for a generation still appear to retain their high productive powers.  Undoubtedly, however, in this district, as in California, the question of soil-fertility will be an important one in the near future.  This is one of the great dry-farm districts of the world.

The Great Basin

The Great Basin includes Nevada, the western half of Utah, a small part of southern Oregon and Idaho, and also a part of Southern California.  It is a great interior basin with all its rivers draining into salt lakes or dry sinks.  In recent geological times the Great Basin was filled with water, forming the great Lake Bonneville which drained into the Columbia River.  In fact, the Great Basin is made up of a series of great valleys, with very level floors, representing the old lake bottom.  On the bench lands are seen, in many places, the effects of the wave action of the ancient lake.  The chief dry-farm crop of this district is wheat, but the other grains, including corn, are also produced successfully.  Other crops have been tried with fair success, but not on a commercial scale.  Grapevines have been made to grow quite successfully without irrigation on the bench lands.  Several small orchards bearing luscious fruit are growing on the deep soils of the Great Basin without the artificial application of water.  Though the first dry-farming by modern peoples was probably practiced in the Great Basin, yet the area at present under cultivation is not large, possibly a little more than four hundred thousand acres.