The water in dry-farm crops

One of the constant constituents of all plants and plant parts is water.  Hay, flour, and starch contain comparatively large quantities of water, which can be removed only by heat.  The water in green plants is often very large.  In young lucern, for instance, it reaches 85 per cent, and in young peas nearly 90 per cent, or more than is found in good cow’s milk.  The water so held by plants has no nutritive value above ordinary water.  It is, therefore, profitable for the consumer to buy dry foods.  In this particular, again, dry-farm crops have a distinct advantage:  During growth there is not perhaps a great difference in the water content of plants, due to climatic differences, but after harvest the drying-out process goes on much more completely in dry-farm than in humid districts.  Hay, cured in humid regions, often contains from 12 to 20 per cent of water; in arid climates it contains as little as 5 per cent and seldom more than 12 per cent.  The drier hay is naturally more valuable pound for pound than the moister hay, and a difference in price, based upon the difference in water content, is already being felt in certain sections of the West.

The moisture content of dry-farm wheat, the chief dry-farm crop, is even more important.  According to Wiley the average water content of wheat for the United States is 10.62 per cent, ranging from 15 to 7 per cent.  Stewart and Greaves examined a large number of wheats grown on the dry-farms of Utah and found that the average per cent of water in the common bread varieties was 8.46 and in the durum varieties 8.89.  This means that the Utah dry-farm wheats transported to ordinary humid conditions would take up enough water from the air to increase their weight one fortieth, or 2.2 per cent, before they reached the average water content of American wheats.  In other words, 1,000,000 bushels of Utah dry-farm wheat contain as much nutritive matter as 1,025,000 bushels of wheat grown and kept under humid conditions.  This difference should be and now is recognized in the prices paid.  In fact, shrewd dealers, acquainted with the dryness of dry-farm wheat, have for some years bought wheat from the dry-farms at a slightly increased price, and trusted to the increase in weight due to water absorption in more humid climates for their profits.  The time should be near at hand when grains and similar products should be purchased upon the basis of a moisture test.

While it is undoubtedly true that dry-farm crops are naturally drier than those of humid countries, yet it must also be kept in mind that the driest dry-farm crops are always obtained where the summers are hot and rainless.  In sections where the precipitation comes chiefly in the spring and summer the difference would not be so great.  Therefore, the crops raised on the Great Plains would not be so dry as those raised in California or in the Great Basin.  Yet, wherever the annual rainfall is so small as to establish dry-farm conditions, whether it comes in the winter or summer, the cured crops are drier than those produced under conditions of a much higher rainfall, and dry farmers should insist that, so far as possible in the future, sales be based on dry matter.