Dry-farming in America

Front matter

Book il

DRY-FARMING

IN AMERICA.

Appendix

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TRANSVAAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

Office of Editor and

Dry-Land Agronomist, Pretoria,

12th October, 1909.

To the Director of Agriculture.

REPORT ON DRY-FARMING IN AMERICA.

Sir,

I have the honour to submit my report on Dry-farming in America for transmission to the Right Hon. the Minister of Agriculture. At the same time I should like to express my appreciation of the personal interest you have taken in the progress of this new movement, as well as for the opportunity afforded me by the Department of Agriculture of pursuing these investigations. My thanks are also due to my two colleagues, Mr. Joseph Burtt-Davy, F.L.S., and Mr. Barend Enslin, who so kindly took charge respectively of the Agricultural Journal and the Dry-land Experiment Station during my absence in the United States.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your obedient servant,

William Macdonald, Editor, Agricultural Journal, and Dry-land Agronomist.

Preface

This report contains an account of a tour undertaken with the special object of finding out what progress had been made in Dry-farming in the United States, and whether it was likely to become an established practice. The conclusion drawn from these investigations will be found in the closing pages of the report. As there is still some uncertainty in the minds of many as to the real meaning of the term dry-farming, I have inserted a short paper dealing with this matter in the Appendix, together with an account of the methods adopted in the different States. Land settlement has also been briefly touched upon, because the successful cultivation of the dry-lands of South Africa must ultimately pave the way for a practical and comprehensive scheme of National Land Settlement for the whole of South Africa. Other matters of general agricultural interest, noted in this tour, will be discussed in subsequent numbers of the Agricultural Journal.

The writer's hearty thanks are due to the Government and the people of the Transvaal for their sympathetic interest in this mission, which he trusts he has carried out to their satisfaction. He is also indebted to the Imperial Government for the honour conferred upon him in appointing him to represent the Colonial Office at the Trans-Missouri Dry-farming Congress ; and he earnestly hopes that the information gained may be of some practical value in the agricultural development and colonisation of other parts of the Empire. Nor must he fail to thank his many friends, both old and new, in the United States for their ready help and warmhearted welcome.

Department of Agriculture,

Pretoria, 12th October, 1909.

DRY-FARMING IN AMERICA.

Chaptee I.

TO THE CHEYENNE CONGRESS.

I left Pretoria on the 11th of January, and two days later sailed by the Walmer Castle. The voyage was exceptionally calm and pleasant, and we arrived in Southampton on the 30th January. I spent two weeks in London and left Liverpool for New York on Saturday, 13th February, at 5 p.m., by the Mauretania. The second day at sea this wonderful vessel broke all previous Atlantic records, doing 671 knots or 773 land miles from noon of Sunday till noon on Monday, and so we passed the Ambrose Channel Lightship off New York on Thursday, the 18th, at 9.55 p.m. — after having come through a terrific gale — in four days, seventeen hours, and six minutes, the fastest voyage* ever made. The Mauretania is a splendid triumph of British shipbuilding, because even at her great average speed of 25.55 knots per hour, or, in other words, one land mile every two minutes, it is hard to realise that you are at sea, so slight is the motion of the vessel.

I arrived in New York City at 10 o'clock on the morning of the 19th and left the same afternoon at 3.45 by the Congressional Limited for Washington. This is the smoothest running train in America and one of the most rapid. It is run in two sections which follow one another at an interval of five minutes. Each consists of four Pullman cars. Thus instead of one long train, two are run on the same track, ensuring great speed and smoothness. The broad guage, viz., 4 feet 8^4 inches, has been adopted on this line. We arrived at Washington sharp on time, having traversed a distance of 225 miles.

At 10 o'clock next morning I called at the Embassy and was most cordially received by the British Ambassador. We at once stepped into his motor car and drove to the Department of State where the Committee for the " Conservation of Natural Resources " was in session. Here I met the Hon. James Wilson, United States Secretary for Agriculture ; the Hon. Sydney Fisher, Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada ; and Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the Bureau of Forestry.

Through the courtesy of Mr. Bryce, at 12.30 p.m. of the same day I had the honour of being received by the President of the United States, Mr. Roosevelt, who welcomed me with the greatest cordiality, and asked me to present his hearty personal greeting of good-will to the Right Hon. the Prime Minister of the Transvaal, and to say how interested he was in South African affairs, and how heartily he wished all success to those who dwell in South Africa. The President also said that he was very much interested in the development of dry-farming, as he had much to do with irrigation and kindred matters in the semi-arid regions of the

* This record has since been broken.

Western United States, and therefore felt a particular interest in these regions. He also fully realised the very great importance of such problems.

Amongst ninety million people in the United States, Theodore Roosevelt for several years has been, and still is, the most commanding personality. To meet him is to understand how he both inspires and dominates his fellow-countrymen. His rugged vitality, boyish enthusiasm, and cheering grip have charmed and won the West ; while the East has longsince capitulated to the restless energy, tireless industry, and driving courage of Harvard's most gifted graduate. Morley has said of Gladstone that he was a Highlander in charge of a Lowlander. With equal truth one might say that Roosevelt was a Westerner in the care of an Easterner. During his tenure of office he proved a real and helpful friend of the farmer, and the various agricultural commissions which he called together on irrigation, natural resources, and country life have already had a profound effect on the welfare of the whole nation.

Mr. Roosevelt always took very seriously this cartoon of the old farmer reading the President's Message. The original of it, framed, hung over the mantel in his private study. He considered this farmer with the firm mouth and the patched trousers to be a representative of the mass of the American people — stable-minded, plain, patriotic, and endowed with common sense. To one who urged him to accept a third term Roosevelt said : " This man wouldn't like it." To Lord Curzon, on a visit to the White House, frankly asking the source of the President's power, Roosevelt said: "That is the man I'm working for." — From Collier's Weekly, 6th March, 1909.

No apology is therefore needed— even in a dry-farming report — to insert the vivid impression of the. greatest Dutchman in America from the pen of the brilliant English novelist Mrs. Humphry Ward* :—

"Washington, at this time of the world's history, was the scene of one of those episodes — those brisker moments in the human comedy— which every now and then revive among us an almost forgotten belief in personality, an almost forgotten respect for the mysteries behind it. The guests streaming through the White House defiled past a man who.

in a level and docketed world, appeared to his generation as the reincarnation of forces primitive, overmastering, and heroic. An honest Odysseus ! — toil-worn and stormbeaten, yet still with the spirit and strength, the many devices of a boy ; capable, like his prototype, in one short day of crushing his enemies, upholding his friends, purifying his house ; and then, with the heat of righteous battle still upon him, with its gore, so to speak, still upon his hands, of turning his mind, without a pause and without hypocrisy, to things intimate and soft and pure — the domesticsweetness of Penelope, the young promise of Telemachus. The President stood, a rugged figure, among the cosmopolitan crowd, breasting the modern world, like some ocean headland, yet not truly of it, one of the great fighters and workers of mankind, with a laugh that pealed above * the noise, blue eyes that seemed to pursue some converse of their own, and a hand that grasped and cheered, where other hands withdrew and repelled. This one man's will had now, for some years, made the pivot on which vast issues turned — issues of peace and war, of policy embracing the civilised world ; and here, one saw him in drawing-rooms, discussing Alaric's campaigns with an Oxford professor, or chatting with a young mother about her children."

On leaving White House, Mr. Bryce and I lunched with Mr. Fisher. The Ambassador was exceedingly kind, and although very busy, placed the best part of a whole day at my service. At 5.45 on the same afternoon, in company with three agricultural experts from the National Department % bf Agriculture, Messrs. Chilcott, Jardine, and Briggs — who were also journeying to the Congress — I left Washington for Chicago on the Pennsylvania Express. Next afternoon at 4- p.m. on the very minute of time, we drew into the Chicago depot, having done a distance of almost 900 miles. And two hours later I boarded the Overland Limited for Cheyenne. Next morning we crossed the Missouri River at Omaha. It was frozen solid, and all day we rushed through the snow-clad plains of Nebraska. Towards evening we encountered a blinding blizzard ; a hurricane of snow and sleet swept along the line, and finally our train slowed down and stopped. All night long the storm raged ; and as the dawn broke we could just make out, massed on a short side track beside us, three great transcontinental trains with their engines buried in snow and ice from cow-catcher to coal-box. The Union Pacific Company has adopted the electric block system by which at every half-mile signals rise and fall, and red lights change to green, at the touch of the passing engine ; and there is but little doubt that to this marvellous device was due our safety in the midst of a blinding snowstorm, on a single line, crowded with tremendous traffic. That same day, at noon, on the 23rd February, we reached Cheyenne, the Capital of the State of Wyoming, which lies roughly 2,000 miles from New York.

Half an hour later the third annual meeting of the Trans-Missouri Dry-farming Congress Avas opened by His Excellency Governor Bryant B. Brooks of Wyoming, in the Capital Avenue Theatre, in the presence of a large and varied gathering. The proceedings were marked by great enthusiasm and sustained interest. Over 500 delegates were present. A great many more, however, were expected, but were delayed by the snowstorm. It is worthy of note that the first dry-farming congress was held in the City of Denver where, curiously enough, the first National Irrigation Congress also met. This first congress started as a sort of s ; de show to the National Live Stock Association, but it was soon seen that many more farmers were interested in dry-farming than in pedigree stock. The second congress held in Salt Lake City was still. more successful; whilst the third* or Cheyenne Congress drew men from all parts of America and several from foreign countries.

During the three days the congress lasted practically every phase of dry-farming was discussed, and the proceedings demonstrated, beyond all doubt, that this practice is now as firmly established as that of irrigation. Furthermore, it has now been placed on a thoroughly sound basis and the early sensational elements have been eliminated. At Cheyenne I had exceptional opportunities of meeting all sorts of men who are engaged in dry-land farming — scientists, land agents, experiment station experts, as well as practical farmers — and what struck me most of all was their unbounded faith in the movement. I also had a long and interesting conversation with Mr. W. H. Campbell — the author of the Campbell system of Dry-farming — and inspected his machine, the Campbell sub-surface packer, which was on view. An instructive exhibit of agricultural implements and various crops which had been grown on dry-lands was shown in a hall close by. It would take too much space to speak in detail of the various papers read at the congress, and I shall merely give their titles.

Papers were read on dry-farming in Russia, China, Australia, Canada, Turkey, Brazil, and the Transvaal, and also concerning the following States : — Utah, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and South Dakota. Special articles were also contributed on : — The Development of the West ; The Dry-farmer and Stock-grower ; Seed-breeding and its relation to Dry-farming ; Practical Dry-f arming ; The Relation of Dry-farming Development to Colonisation in the West ; The Legitimate Land Agent versus the Speculator Type ; Effect of Climate on Crops ; Government Experiments in Wyoming ; Scientific Agriculture and its Effects on the West ; Dry-farming and Live Stock Fattening ; Dry-farming and Railroad Development ; Dry-land Agricultural Investigations ; Physical Problems in connection with Dry-farming ; Adaptation of Dry-land Grain to local conditions ; Dry-farming on a Homestead — the last paper being read by a woman who had successfully established a homestead on the dry-lands of Colorado.

Owing to the immense amount of business to be transacted during the nine sessions of the congress the Programme Committee made the excellent rule that no address or paper should exceed twenty minutes in delivery ; and speeches from the floor were limited to five minutes each.

The work of the congress may be summarised as follows : —

I. It demonstrated that the practice of dry-farming is attracting

world-wide attention.

II. That the recent agricultural prosperity in the United States

is mainly due to the successful development of the semi-arid regions by dry-farming.

III. That the two great problems in dry-farming are the conservation of moisture and the maintenance of fertility. It was

* The fourth Dry-Farming Congress will be held at Billings, Montana, on the 2(5th. 27th and 28th October. 1909.

instructive to note, however, that while the speakers from the East and the Great Plains area — the Dakotas, Kansas, and Nebraska — emphasised the need of fertility and the rotation of crops, those from the Far West or Great Basin area — Utah, Idaho, and Nevada — spoke altogether on the subject of the conservation of moisture by means of the summer fallow.

IV. That in dry-farming not only rainfall but also evaporation must be carefully studied. This most important point was brought out by Dr. L. J. Briggs, Physicist to the National Department of Agriculture.

V. That the dry-farm is largely a live stock problem, and that

agricultural farming and stock farming should be combined as much as possible.

VI. That irrigation — by means of windmills and small dams — should be allied to dry-farming whenever practicable.

VII. That the study of dry-farming is lending new interest, hope, and dignity to western agriculture.

During the congress a resolution was passed condemning all dishonest advertising, several speakers stating that the cause had been damaged by unscrupulous agents booming worthless land. Further, the name Trans-Missouri was dropped in view of the fact that the congress had now become an international affair, and the simple term " Dry-farming Congress " was adopted. s Arid farming which is largely used in Utah was also rejected, as well as the term Scientific Soil Culture.

The following foreign delegates were present and a whole evening was devoted to their papers. Senator James H. McColl, of the Commonwealth of Australia, was unanimously elected Chairman, and worthily upheld the parliamentary traditions of the British Empire.

(1) H. W. Fairfield, Esq., Dominion of Canada.

(3) Joseph A. Eosen, Esq., Eussia.

(5) Dr. William Macdonald, Transvaal and British Colonial Office.

(6) Senator James H. McColl, Commonwealth of Australia, Chairman of Congress.

(7) D. W. Warner, Esq., Province of Alberta.

President Eoosevelt's telegraphic message to the congress ran thus : —

" I wish to extend to you greetings and congratulations upon your third annual meeting. I am deeply interested in the progress of your work. Any organisation having for its purpose the development of the agricultural resources of the great semi-arid sections of the United States should have the hearty support of all good citizens. I am in full sympathy with your efforts and appreciate hardships, privations, and difficulties with which the pioneers among the mountains and on the great plains have to contend. Eest assured that so far as lies within my power, everything that can be done to aid you will be done. The reclamation of our lands through irrigation, the conservation of our forests, and other natural resources, and the development of our semi-arid lands by such methods as you are now advocating, all tend to insure the growth and well-being of. this country. I trust that your meeting will be a great success and will!

L4 result in action that will command the confidence and support of the home builder, the man for whom we are all working."'

I delivered the following messages, which were warmly received, and at the request of the President of the Congress, the entire audience rose and gave three hearty cheers for the Transvaal and the Empire. Thereafter, I read a paper on " Dry-land Farming in the Transvaal," and had the honour of being elected a Foreign Vice-President of the Congress and Corresponding Secretary for South Africa.

Chairman :

His Excellency, Bryant B. Brooks,

Governor of "Wyoming and President of the Dry-farming Congress. Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen,

With your permission, I shall read three messages, which I have the honour to lay before this Congress.

The first is from General the Eight Hon. Louis Botha, P.C., M.L.A., Prime Minister of the Transvaal and Minister of Agriculture.

LETTERS.

No. 1.

South African National Convention, Capetown.

13th January, 1909.

To the Delegates oe the Trans-Missouri Dry-farming Congress. Gentlemen,

I have instructed Dr. William Macdonald to convey to you on behalf of the Government of the Transvaal our most cordial good wishes for the success of your congress, and to assure you that the people of the Transvaal will follow your deliberations with much interest.

The scientific study and utilisation of the dry-lands are subjects of the highest importance to the whole of South Africa, and the great advances which have bee^L made in the United States of America have encouraged us to hope tl >t the same results may be obtained in South Africa.

Believe me,

Gentlemen.

Yours sincerely.

Louis Botha, Prime Minister of the Transvaal

and Minister of Agriculture.

The second message I have been requested to convey to you is from His Excellency, the Earl of Selborne, P.C., Governor of the Transvaal and High Commissioner for South Africa.

No. II.

12th January, 1909.

Dear Dr. Macdonald,

I think we have every reason to feel gratified for the kindness and courtesy of the Secretary of the Department of State in inviting the British Colonies in South Africa to take pari in the Dry-farming Congress.

which is to take place at Cheyenne at the end of February next, and for the great care which has evidently been taken by the board of control to make this Congress a success. You will be able to tell the gentlemen who receive you how much this courtesy is appreciated in South Africa and what great importance we attach to the success of this congress, for dry-farming is a scientific problem which it is as much to the interests of South Africa to solve as of the United States of America. Wishing you all success.

Believe me, Yours very truly,

Selborne, Governor of the Transvaal and High Commissioner for South Africa.

The third message which I have been commissioned to lay before you is from the Eight Hon. the Earl of Crewe, P.C., M.A., Secretary of State for the Colonies. Sir Francis J. S. Hopwood, G-.C.M.G.. K.C.B., Permanent Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, writes as follows : —

No. III.

Colonial Office, Whitehall, London,

9th February, 1909.

Dr. William Macdonald,

Langham Hotel, London.

Sir,

I am requested by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to ask you to convey to the President and Members of the Trans-Missouri Dry-farming Congress, which meets at Cheyenne, his most cordial good wishes for the success of their deliberations. Lord Crewe desires me to add that he has followed with keen interest the splendid progress which has been made in the reclamation and settlement of the arid lands of Western America ; and he is confident that the scientific study of the potentialities of those regions in which the rainfall is small and irregular will do much to promote the agricultural prosperity both of the United States and the British Empire.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

Francis J. Hopwood, Under Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Lastly, I am desired by the British Ambassador at Washington, the Eight Hon. James Bryce, O.M., P.O., to convey to you his best wishes for the success of this conference and to assure you of the great interest he takes in the agricultural development of Western America.

As already mentioned, during the congress I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Hardy W. Campbell, of Lincoln, Nebraska. Mr. Campbell is widely known throughout the west as the author of what is commonly called the Campbell Method of Dry-farming. As this practice has been both praised and censured it is rather hard to form a fair estimate of its real value. But during my last tour I have come to the following conclusion.* Mr. Campbell has done much to advertise and popularise the

* In this estimate of Campbell's work I am supported by Mr. Joseph A. Rosen, Chief of the Russian Bureau of Agriculture, of Ekaterinoslay. and by Mr. William M. Jardine,. Agronomist to the National Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.

system which bears his name ; but he has not succeeded as an experimentalist and he has few experiments to justify his assertions. The contention that his method of dr}^-f arming is the only proper one has not bee sustained — for example in Utah it is practically unknown : while hi~ statements at times are unreliable and misleading. The term " Scientific- Soil Culture/' which is so earnestly advocated by Campbell, is much too cumbersome and will assuredly not be accepted by the farming community as a substitute for the simple phrase d^-farming.

The machine called the Campbell sub-surface packer, under certain conditions, gives good results ; but it must be used with care. Furthermore, it is seldom of much use on soil that has had time to settle and become packed. It is therefore more valuable on spring than on fall or autumn ploughing. Where loose manure has been applied to the land it may be used to advantage, but on wet clayey ground it may seriously injure the mechanical and physical texture of the soil. In short, the Campbell sub-surface packer cannot be said to be essential to success in dry-farming, although under certain conditions it is decidedly beneficial:

Nevertheless, it is not fair to disparage Campbell's missionary efforts amongst the farmers of the west. It is often said, and truly so, that Jethro Tull was the first exponent of the so-called Campbell system of soil culture ; but it should not be forgotten that Tull did not work under semi-arid conditions, and secondly, that although his practice was successful, his theories were erroneous. Be that as it may, the fact remains that a large number of western farmers believe in Campbell's teaching, and many have followed his system or like methods with success.

At the end of this Chapter the well-chosen motto of the Congress — conservation, cultivation, education — has been sketched, and I shall now close with a short extract which is taken from a personal letter from His Excellency Edwin L. Norris, Governor of Montana, and President of the Fourth Dry-farming Congress which sums up its purpose and scope : —

" The, Dry-farming Congress, while American in its inception, knows no country, its one object being the ' further development of agriculture throughout the world by the utilisation of scientific and sensible methods of conservation and cultivation where irrigation is impracticable or impossible.' To the accomplishment of this object the congress is bending every energy, and in the three years of its history it has done an amount of good that cannot be computed in mere figures. It aims to bring together, from every country on the globe, the leaders in a movement that is fraught with so much importance to the people of all lands. It purposes to hasten in every way possible the day when the application of scientific methods to agriculture will add countless millions of acres to the areas now under cultivation, and so contribute tremendously to the world's supply of breadstuff's and to its wealth."

From Cheyenne I returned eastwards -through Sioux City to St. Paul where I called on Mr. J. J. Hill, who is popularly known as the " Empire Builder of the West." Besides being the foremost railroad director in America, Mr. Hill has also won a wide reputation as an agricultural economist. He was born in the year 1838 on a small farm in Canada : and has recently given the sum of half a million dollars to endow a Roman Catholic Seminary in St. Paul. Half a century ago two farm lads started out to win fame and fortune. The one, a Canadian — James J. Hill — became the railroad builder of the American North-west ; the other an

James J. Hill,

" The Empire-Builder of the West,"

American — Sir Thomas Shaughnessy — crossed over into Canada and to-day controls the destinies of the Dominion's greatest railroad. Mr. Hiii received me with the utmost cordiality and gave me the greater part of a forenoon to the discussion of rural problems. He is a profound believer in the necessity of conserving the natural resources of the State, and lays special emphasis on the value of small farms and the maintenance of fertility by the rotation of crops ; and his words " Show me a large farm and I will show you a farm full of weeds and badly cultivated," seem deserving of our attention. His agricultural gospel may be summed up in a single sentence : Small holdings, well tilled, and the maintenance of fertility by manure. In England, Denmark, and Holland where the farms are small and well cultivated the yields are high ; but in the United States, Russia, and Australia where too often the ground is merely scratched the average yield per acre is lamentably low. Speaking of agricultural education, Mr. Hill said : " You can't bring all farmers to an agricultural college ; therefore you must train men to go out amongst them to make experiments in growing seeds, breeding new plants, and feeding animals and the like, things a farmer cannot well do by himself. I have advocated the taking over of fifty agricultural counties in the State of Minnesota and placing them under the care of graduates of the State College of Agriculture. Each expert could take charge of ten or twelve farms and prepare, say, one or two acres on each farm for seeding to wheat. Give the farmer the purest seed and show him how to raise thirty bushels of wheat to the acre in place of the 8-12 bushels of the Red River Valley, and so on with other crops. But use acre plots, not anvthing less/'

Touching land settlement, Mr. Hill laid great emphasis on the value of the Homestead Act in the development of America, notwithstanding the abuses which have arisen in connection with its administration. Then turning to South Africa he said : " Offer free land to settlers, but look well to the character of your immigrants. Consider quality rather than quantity. The stream will never rise above its source. If you poison your country with an inferior class of settlers the whole land will ultimately become infected."

Hill was the first to formulate the now widely accepted railroad policy ci the West. That is to say, he never waited for population, but boldly pushed his lines across the deserts to the Pacific Coast,* and is to-day reaping the rich reward of his courageous enterprise in enormous freight and passenger traffic. So he laid the Great Northern rails for a thousand miles over the prairies of the North- West and then sent his immigration agents far and wide throughout the world to bid the poor but sturdy peasant "welcome" to the free lands beyond the sea.

I have already written in the pages of the Transvaal Agricultural Journal of the great work which has been done by the A gri cultural School and College of the University of Minnesota. But two things impressed me during this last visit. In the first place, I happened to be present at the annual Alumni banquet of the School of Agriculture and listened that evening to three Senators discoursing on the agricultural bills which

* On 10th May, 1909, forty years had elapsed since the rails of the Union Pacific moving westward met the rails of the Central Pacific moving eastward, at Promontory Point, near Ogden, Utah, and the first transcontinental railway was completed. Six railroads now span the United States, and 230,000 miles, or 47 per cent, of the railway system of the entire world, have been built.