Carleton has recommended emmer as a crop peculiarly adapted to semiarid conditions.  Emmer is a species of wheat to the berries of which the chaff adheres very closely.  It is highly prized as a stock feed.  In Russia and Germany it is grown in very large quantities.  It is especially adapted to arid and semiarid conditions, but will probably thrive best where the winters are dry and summers wet.  It exists as spring and winter varieties. is with the other small grains, the success of emmer will depend largely upon the satisfactory development of winter varieties.

Corn

Of all crops yet tried on dry-farms, corn is perhaps the most uniformly successful under extreme dry conditions.  If the soil treatment and planting have been right, the failures that have been reported may invariably be traced to the use of seed which had not been acclimated.  The American Indians grow corn which is excellent for dry-farm purposes; many of the western farmers have likewise produced strains that use the minimum of moisture, and, moreover, corn brought from humid sections adapts itself to arid conditions in a very few years.  Escobar reports a native corn grown in Mexico with low stalks and small ears that well endures desert conditions.  In extremely dry years corn does not always produce a profitable crop of seed, but the crop as a whole, for forage purposes, seldom fails to pay expenses and leave a margin for profit.  In wetter years there is a corresponding increase of the corn crop.  The dryfarming territory does not yet realize the value of corn as a dry-farm crop.  The known facts concerning corn make it safe to predict, however, that its dry farm acreage will increase rapidly, and that in time it will crowd the wheat crop for preëminence.

Sorghums

Among dry-farm crops not popularly known are the sorghums, which promise to become excellent yielders under arid conditions.  The sorghums are supposed to have come grown the tropical sections of the globe, but they are now scattered over the earth in all climes.  The sorghums have been known in the United States for over half a century, but it was only when dry-farming began to develop so tremendously that the drouth-resisting power of the sorghums was recalled.  According to Ball, the sorghums fall into the following classes:—­

THE SORGHUMS

1.  Broom corns 2.  Sorgas or sweet sorghums 3.  Kafirs 4.  Durras

The broom corns are grown only for their brush, and are not considered in dry-farming; the sorgas for forage and sirups, and are especially adapted for irrigation or humid conditions, though they are said to endure dry-farm conditions better than corn.  The Kafirs are dry-farm crops and are grown for grain and forage.  This group includes Red Kafir, White Kafir, Black-hulled White Kafir, and White Milo, all of which are valuable for dry-farming.  The Durras are grown almost exclusively for seed and include