Modern dry-farming in the United States
The honor of having originated modern dry-farming belongs to the people of Utah. On July 24th, 1847, Brigham Young with his band of pioneers entered Great Salt Lake Valley, and on that day ground was plowed, potatoes planted, and a tiny stream of water led from City Creek to cover this first farm. The early endeavors of the Utah pioneers were devoted almost wholly to the construction of irrigation systems. The parched desert ground appeared so different from the moist soils of Illinois and Iowa, which the pioneers had cultivated, as to make it seem impossible to produce crops without irrigation. Still, as time wore on, inquiring minds considered the possibility of growing crops without irrigation; and occasionally when a farmer was deprived of his supply of irrigation water through the breaking of a canal or reservoir it was noticed by the community that in spite of the intense heat the plants grew and produced small yields.
Gradually the conviction grew upon the Utah pioneers that farming without irrigation was not an impossibility; but the small population were kept so busy with their small irrigated farms that no serious attempts at dry-farming were made during the first seven or eight years. The publications of those days indicate that dry-farming must have been practiced occasionally as early as 1854 or 1855.
About 1863 the first dry-farm experiment of any consequence occurred in Utah. A number of emigrants of Scandinavian descent had settled in what is now known as Bear River City, and had turned upon their farms the alkali water of Malad Creek, and naturally the crops failed. In desperation the starving settlers plowed up the sagebrush land, planted grain, and awaited results. To their surprise, fair yields of grain were obtained, and since that day dry-farming has been an established practice in that portion of the Great Salt Lake Valley. A year or two later, Christopher Layton, a pioneer who helped to build both Utah and Arizona, plowed up land on the famous Sand Ridge between Salt Lake City and Ogden and demonstrated that dry-farm wheat could be grown successfully on the deep sandy soil which the pioneers had held to be worthless for agricultural purposes. Since that day the Sand Ridge has been famous as a dry-farm district, and Major J. W. Powell, who saw the ripened fields of grain in the hot dry sand, was moved upon to make special mention of them in his volume on the "Arid Lands of Utah," published in 1879.
About this time, perhaps a year or two later, Joshua Salisbury and George L. Farrell began dry-farm experiments in the famous Cache Valley, one hundred miles north of Salt Lake City. After some years of experimentation, with numerous failures these and other pioneers established the practice of dry-farming in Cache Valley, which at present is one of the most famous dry-farm sections in the United States. In Tooele County, Just south of Salt Lake City, dry-farming was practiced in 1877—how much earlier is not known. In the northern Utah counties dry-farming assumed proportions of consequence only in the later '70's and early '80's. During the '80's it became a thoroughly established and extensive business practice in the northern part of the state.
California, which was settled soon after Utah, began dry-farm experiments a little later than Utah. The available information indicates that the first farming without irrigation in California began in the districts of somewhat high precipitation. As the population increased, the practice was pushed away from the mountains towards the regions of more limited rainfall. According to Hilgard, successful dry-farming on an extensive scale has been practiced in California since about 1868. Olin reports that moisture-saving methods were used on the Californian farms as early as 1861. Certainly, California was a close second in originating dry-farming.
The Columbia Basin was settled by Mareus Whitman near Walla Walla in 1836, but farming did not gain much headway until the railroad pushed through the great Northwest about 1880. Those familiar with the history of the state of Washington declare that dry-farming was in successful operation in isolated districts in the late '70's. By 1890 it was a well-established practice, but received a serious setback by the financial panic of 1892-1893. Really successful and extensive dry-farming in the Columbia Basin began about 1897. The practice of summer fallow had begun a year or two before. It is interesting to note that both in California and Washington there are districts in which dry-farming has been practiced successfully under a precipitation of about ten inches whereas in Utah the limit has been more nearly twelve inches.
In the Great Plains area the history of dry-farming Is hopelessly lost in the greater history of the development of the eastern and more humid parts of that section of the country. The great influx of settlers on the western slope of the Great Plains area occurred in the early '80's and overflowed into eastern Colorado and Wyoming a few years later. The settlers of this region brought with them the methods of humid agriculture and because of the relatively high precipitation were not forced into the careful methods of moisture conservation that had been forced upon Utah, California, and the Columbia Basin. Consequently, more failures in dry-farming are reported from those early days in the Great Plains area than from the drier sections of the far West Dry-farming was practiced very successfully in the Great Plains area during the later '80's. According to Payne, the crops of 1889 were very good; in 1890, less so; in 1891, better; in 1892 such immense crops were raised that the settlers spoke of the section as God's country; in 1893, there was a partial failure, and in 1894 the famous complete failure, which was followed in 1895 by a partial failure. Since that time fair crops have been produced annually. The dry years of 1893-1895 drove most of the discouraged settlers back to humid sections and delayed, by many years, the settlement and development of the western side of the Great Plains area. That these failures and discouragements were due almost entirely to improper methods of soil culture is very evident to the present day student of dry-farming. In fact, from the very heart of the section which was abandoned in 1893-1895 come reliable records, dating back to 1886, which show successful crop production every year. The famous Indian Head experimental farm of Saskatchewan, at the north end of the Great Plains area, has an unbroken record of good crop yields from 1888, and the early '90's were quite as dry there as farther south. However, in spite of the vicissitudes of the section, dry-farming has taken a firm hold upon the Great Plains area and is now a well-established practice.
The curious thing about the development of dry-farming in Utah, California, Washington, and the Great Plains is that these four sections appear to have originated dry-farming independently of each other. True, there was considerable communication from 1849 onward between Utah and California, and there is a possibility that some of the many Utah settlers who located in California brought with them accounts of the methods of dry-farming as practiced in Utah. This, however, cannot be authenticated. It is very unlikely that the farmers of Washington learned dry-farming from their California or Utah neighbors, for until 1880 communication between Washington and the colonies in California and Utah was very difficult, though, of course, there was always the possibility of accounts of agricultural methods being carried from place to place by the moving emigrants. It is fairly certain that the Great Plains area did not draw upon the far West for dry-farm methods. The climatic conditions are considerably different and the Great Plains people always considered themselves as living in a very humid country as compared with the states of the far West. It may be concluded, therefore, that there were four independent pioneers in dry-farming in United States. Moreover, hundreds, probably thousands, of individual farmers over the semiarid region have practiced dry-farming thirty to fifty years with methods by themselves.
Although these different dry-farm sections were developed independently, yet the methods which they have finally adopted are practically identical and include deep plowing, unless the subsoil is very lifeless; fall plowing; the planting of fall grain wherever fall plowing is possible; and clean summer fallowing. About 1895 the word began to pass from mouth to mouth that probably nearly all the lands in the great arid and semiarid sections of the United States could be made to produce profitable crops without irrigation. At first it was merely a whisper; then it was talked aloud, and before long became the great topic of conversation among the thousands who love the West and wish for its development. Soon it became a National subject of discussion. Immediately after the close of the nineteenth century the new awakening had been accomplished and dry-farming was moving onward to conquer the waste places of the earth.