The Shadow of the Year of Drouth still obscures the hope of many a dry-farmer.  From the magazine page and the public platform the prophet of evil, thinking himself a friend of humanity, solemnly warns against the arid region and dry-farming, for the year of drouth, he says, is sure to come again and then will be repeated the disasters of 1893-1895.  Beware of the year of drouth.  Even successful dry-farmers who have obtained good crops every year for a generation or more are half led to expect a dry year or one so dry that crops will fail in spite of all human effort.  The question is continually asked, “Can crop yields reasonably be expected every year, through a succession of dry years, under semiarid conditions, if the best methods of dry-farming be practiced?” In answering this question, it may be said at the very beginning, that when the year of drouth is mentioned in connection with dry-farming, sad reference is always made to the experience on the Great Plains in the early years of the ’90’s.  Now the fact of the matter is, that while the years of 1893,1894, and 1895 were dry years, the only complete failure came in 1894.  In spite of the improper methods practiced by the settlers, the willing soil failed to yield a crop only one year.  Moreover, it should not be forgotten that hundreds of farmers in the driest section during this dry period, who instinctively or otherwise farmed more nearly right, obtained good crops even in 1894.  The simple practice of summer fallowing, had it been practiced the year before, would have insured satisfactory crops in the driest year.  Further, the settlers who did not take to their heels upon the arrival of the dry year are still living in large numbers on their homesteads and in numerous instances have accumulated comfortable fortunes from the land which has been held up so long as a warning against settlement beyond a humid climate.  The failure of 1894 was due as much to a lack of proper agricultural information and practice as to the occurrence of a dry year.

Next, the statement is carelessly made that the recent success in dry-farming is due to the fact that we are now living in a cycle of wet years, but that as soon as the cycle of dry years strikes the country dry-farming will vanish as a dismal failure.  Then, again, the theory is proposed that the climate is permanently changing toward wetness or dryness and the past has no meaning in reading the riddle of the future.  It is doubtless true that no man may safely predict the weather for future generations; yet, so far as human knowledge goes, there is no perceptible average change in the climate from period to period within historical time; neither are there protracted dry periods followed by protracted wet periods.  The fact is, dry and wet years alternate.  A succession of somewhat wet years may alternate with a succession of somewhat dry years, but the average precipitation from decade to decade is very nearly the same.  True, there will always be a dry year, that is, the driest year of a series of years, and this is the supposedly fearful and fateful year of drouth.  The business of the dry-farmer is always to farm so as to be prepared for this driest year whenever it comes.  If this be done, the farmer will always have a crop:  in the wet years his crop will be large; in the driest year it will be sufficient to sustain him.