in these drier districts, only certain crops, carefully cultivated, will yield profitably, and the pasture and the kitchen garden are practical impossibilities from an economic point of view.  Such conditions, though profitable dry-farming is feasible, preclude the existence of the home and the barn on or even near the farm.  When feed must be hauled many miles, the profits of the live stock industry are materially reduced and the dry-farmer usually prefers to grow a crop of wheat, the straw of which may be plowed under the soil to the great advantage of the following crop.  In dry-farm districts where the rainfall is higher or better distributed, or where the ground water is near the surface, there should be no reason why dry-farming and live stock should not go hand in hand.  Wherever water is within reach, the homestead is also possible.  The recent development of the gasoline motor for pumping purposes makes possible a small home garden wherever a little water is available.  The lack of water for culinary purposes is really the problem that has stood between the joint development of dry-farming and the live stock industry.  The whole matter, however, looks much more favorable to-day, for the efforts of the Federal and state governments have succeeded in discovering numerous subterranean sources of water in dry-farm districts.  In addition, the development of small irrigation systems in the neighborhood of dry-farm districts is helping the cause of the live stock industry.  At the present time, dry-farming and the live stock industry are rather far apart, though undoubtedly as the desert is conquered they will become more closely associated.  The question concerning the best maintenance of soil-fertility remains the same; and the ideal way of maintaining fertility is to return to the soil as much as is possible of the plant-food taken from it by the crops, which can best be accomplished by the development of the business of keeping live stock in connection with dry-farming.

If live stock cannot be kept on a dry-farm, the most direct method of maintaining soil-fertility is by the application of commercial fertilizers.  This practice is followed extensively in the Eastern states and in Europe.  The large areas of dry-farms and the high prices of commercial fertilizers will make this method of manuring impracticable on dry-farms, and it may be dismissed from thought until such a day as conditions, especially with respect to price of nitrates and potash, are materially changed.

Nitrogen, which is the most important plant-food that may be absent from dry-farm soils, may be secured by the proper use of leguminous crops.  All the pod-bearing plants commonly cultivated, such as peas, beans, vetch, clover, and lucern, are able to secure large quantities of nitrogen from the air through the activity of bacteria that live and grow on the roots of such plants.  The leguminous crop should be sown in the usual way, and when it is well past