Twenty acre inches of water will produce 50 bushels of wheat.

It must be distinctly remembered, however, that under no known
system of tillage can all the water that falls upon a soil be
brought into the soil and stored there for plant use. Neither is it
possible to treat a soil so that all the stored soil-moisture may be
used for plant production. Some moisture, of necessity, will
evaporate directly from the soil, and some may be lost in many other
ways. Yet, even under a rainfall of 12 inches, if only one half of
the water can be conserved, which experiments have shown to be very
feasible, there is a possibility of producing 30 bushels of wheat
per acre every other year, which insures an excellent interest on
the money and labor invested in the production of the crop.

It is on the grounds outlined in this chapter that students of the
subject believe that ultimately large areas of the "desert" may be
reclaimed by means of dry-farming. The real question before the
dry-farmer is not, "Is the rainfall sufficient?" but rather, "Is it
possible so to conserve and use the rainfall as to make it available
for the production of profitable crops?"







CHAPTER III