Dry Farming

A lesson on Wyoming growing crops without irrigation..

Objectives
• Students will define and understand the difference between “dry” farming
and utilizing irrigation methods.
• Students will examine “dry” farming history in Wyoming.
• Students will investigate and compare past and present farming methods.
• Students will analyze photos and draw conclusions about the photo.

Anticipatory Set
Dry Farming! What do you mean dry farming? Everyone knows that all plants STANDARDS
need water to grow, so just exactly how do you grow something “dry”?
Let’s travel back into the olden days of farming in Wyoming. Do you think it will Social Studies (SS)
be different from farming today? What do you think “dry” farming means?
4.2.1 4.3.1,2 4.4.3

Procedure 4.5.4
1st Section
• Introduce vocabulary words. Make predictions of how the words will be Language Arts (LA)
used in the reading.
• Read “Dry Farming: From Wyoming Tales and Trails”. (Supplemental Mate- 3.1A.1-5 3.1C 3.2A.7

rial) Discuss. 3.2B.4 3.3.1,4 4.1A.1-5,8,10

• Identify and discuss what dry farming is. Examine the photos of “dry” farm- 4.1C 4.1C.1,2,4 4.2A. 2,4
ing. 4.3.4 5.1A.1-6 5.1B.2
5.1C.1-3 5.2B.1,3-5 5.3.4-5
Guided Practice
• Read “Dry Farming” aloud as a group. Discuss the importance of “dry”
Science (SC)
farming before the Dust Bowl. What effects did the Dust Bowl have on
farming? Is it possible for “fakirs” to create rain? 4.1.1-3,4,6,8 4.2.2 4.3.1,2
• Examine the photos of dry farming in Wyoming History. Discuss what is
shown in each photo.
Career/Vocational (CV)
4.3.2 4.6.1-4
Closure
• Explain the process of “dry” farming.
• Discuss the different methods used in farming today.
• How does farming affect you? What would happen if Wyoming had an- MATERIALS
other Dust Bowl?
• Supplemental Reading “Dry
Independent Practice Farming: From Wyoming Tales
• Have students complete photo analysis, resource comparison, and vocabu- and Trials.
lary activities as they work into your corresponding subjects. (The activities • Field Trip Area (Optional)
will meet standards in several different categories.) • Vocabulary List
• Have students interview a local farmer and report to the class. • Photo Analysis Worksheet
• Have students create a picture of what Wyoming would look like if we have • Source Worksheet
another Dust Bowl. • List of additional activities.
(Optional)
Extension • Book Harvest Year by Cris
• Invite a local farmer speak in your classroom. Peterson (Optional)
• Visit several local farms. Compare how they are alike and how they are
different. TIME
• Try growing your own “dry” crop. Record and analyze what happens.
One 30 minute period
• View other Wyoming Ag in the Classroom lessons to complement this les-
Additional time as needed.
son.

GRADE LEVEL
3-5
 Vocabulary:

Dry Farming: A type of farming practiced in arid areas without

irrigation by planting drought-resistant crops and
maintaining a fine surface tilth or mulch that protects
the natural moisture of the soil from evaporation.

Plow: To tear up, cut into, or make a furrow, groove, etc. in

(a surface) with or as if with a plow (often fol. by up):
The tractor plowed up an acre of trees.

Harrow: An agricultural implement with spikelike teeth or

upright disks, drawn chiefly over plowed land to level
it, break up clods, root up weeds, etc.

Primary Source: An actual record that has survived the past, such as a
diary, letter, photograph, or film of an interview.

Irrigation: The artificial application of water to land to assist in

the production of crops.

Cultivate: To prepare and work on (land) in order to raise crops;

till.

Secondary Source: A record that was created after an event occurred,

such as a textbook.

Evaporation: The changing of a liquid into a gas, often under the

influence of heat (as in the boiling of water).

Drought: A long period of abnormally low rainfall, especially

one that adversely affects growing or living conditions.

Delegates: A person designated to act for or represent another or

others; deputy; representative, as in a political
convention.

Prosperity: A successful, flourishing, or thriving condition, esp. in

financial respects; good fortune.

Homesteaders: A settler under the Homestead Act.

Immigrants: A person who leaves one country to settle

permanently in another.
Contingent: Dependent on conditions or occurrences not yet
established; conditional: arms sales contingent on the
approval of Congress.

Deluge: A great flood of water; inundation; flood.

Fakirs: A Muslim or Hindu religious expert or an outstanding

individual commonly considered a wonder-worker.

Thunder Basin
National Grasslands: A massive national park, covering 1,800,339 acres
and encompassing Campbell County, Converse
County, Crook County, and Weston County, used to
be but a huge dust bowl. Settlers from the East,
knowledgeable only about farming a humid land,
failed when they attempted to farm Wyoming's
semiarid plains. Poor soil and frequent droughts
ended in disaster, and the land soon deteriorated into
dust bowls.
Although dry land may be impossible for some
cultivation, it doesn't rule out every possibility. Now,
the acreage is home to one of the world's largest
pronghorn herds, and sheep and cattle graze on the
once deemed unsuitable land. The Bozeman and
Texas trails cross a section of the grassland as well.

Lesson Suggestions:

• Alphabetize the vocabulary list.

• Use a dictionary to determine whether the word is a noun, verb, or
adjective. Do some words have more than one form?
• Find the vocabulary words in the reading selection. What form is the word
used? (noun, verb, etc.)
• Write a sentence using each vocabulary word.
 Dry Farming
From Wyoming Tales and Trails

Information adapted from www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com.

Dry Farming
At the same time as developers were promoting irrigation, other efforts at bringing
prosperity to the state were made by the promise of agricultural development using "dry
farming." In 1906, John L. Cowan published his book, Dry Farming -- The Hope of the West, A
Method of Producing Bountiful Crops Without Irrigation in Semi-Arid Regions. Governor B. B.
Brooks chaired a Dry Farming Congress in Cheyenne in 1909. Severe snow storms reduced
expected attendance, but close to 500 delegates were present. The following year, another
congress was held in Spokane, Washington under the chairmanship of Wyoming Congressman
Frank W. Mondell. Congressman Mondell had successfully utilized dry farming methods near
Newcastle for five years. Professor of Botany and later president of the University of Wyoming,
Aven Nelson joined the band wagon. In 1911, Dr. Nelson told a gathering in Cheyenne that with
farming as the "backbone of our prosperity," the state might attain a population as much as "two
millions of people." There were some naysayers such as Bill Nye, publisher of Laramie Daily
Boomerang, who earlier wrote,

Unless the yield this fall of most agates and prickly pears should be unusually
large, the agricultural export will be far below preceding years, and there may
be actual suffering. I do not wish to discourage those who might wish to come
to this place but the soil is quite course, and the agriculturist, before he can
even begin with any prospect of success, must run his farm through a stamp-
mill in order to make it sufficiently mellow.

The historical premise for dry farming was explained by a Utah proponent Dr. John A.
Widstoe in his Dry-Farming, A System of Agriculture for Countries Under Low Rainfall, The
Macmillan Company, New York, 1920:

Many of the primitive peoples of today, the Chinese, Hindus, Mexicans, and the
American Indians, are cultivating large areas of land by dry-farm methods.
These groups of people have perfected methods which were developed
generations ago, and have been handed down to the present day. Martin
relates that the Tarahumari Indians, of northern Chihuahua, are among the
most thriving aboriginal tribes of northern Mexico. They till the soil by dry-farm
methods and succeed in raising large quantities of corn and other crops
annually. A crop failure among them is very uncommon. The early American
 explorers, especially the Catholic fathers, found Native American tribes in
various parts of America cultivating the soil successfully without irrigation. All
this confirms the success of agriculture without irrigation in arid and semiarid
climates.

The University of Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station confidently predicted that with
dry farming one-fourth the state could be profitably farmed on a regular basis. University of
Wyoming experts also predicted that half of the remaining three-fourths of the state could be
profitably produce crops without irrigation on a seasonal basis. Dry farming was based on the
theory that with deep plowing and harrowing of the soil after rain, that the water would be stored
in the soil for the crops to use in periods of no rain. The problem, according to the "experts" such
as Dr. V. T. Cooke, was not lack of rain, but evaporation. Dr. Cooke was brought in from
Oregon by Cheyenne businessmen to promote the benefits of dry farming. The enthusiasm for
dry farming was in partial reaction to a paper on the subject written by the State Engineer
Clarence J. Johnston. John L. Cowan explained:

The members of the Young Men's Club of Cheyenne, Wyoming, listened to the
reading of a paper on the subject of dry farming by State Engineer Clarence J.
Johnston. A project was at once set in motion for the development of an
experiment farm on waste lands near the city. This land was supposed to be
entirely worthless without irrigation. The farm was put in charge of Mr. F. C.
Herman of the Irrigation and Drainage Bureau of the United States Department
of Agriculture. That season record breaking crops of corn, potatoes, peas, oats,
and garden vegetables were grown on those "waste" lands. Winter wheat, rye,
alfalfa, and barley were also sown. Within ten days the grain was ten inches
high, covering the land that had been considered incapable of raising anything
with a carpet of green.

Numerous books and magazine articles were written, giving dry farm farmers publicity.
Reports from agricultural experiment stations and promotion by railroads created a wave of
homesteaders to spread across the northern plains, the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming. The
railroads, of course, needed a population to serve and were to a great extent a real estate sales
operation. Brochures were distributed across Eastern Europe and the immigrants came. In some
areas, disappointment greeted the new settlers. The 160 acres were, in many instances, too small
for effective dry farming. In other areas the new dry farm settlers were called "honyockers,"
pronounced "hawnyawkers," derived from the German word huhn jäger. The term meant hen
hunter or chicken chaser. Honyockers were thought to be crazy for trying to grow crops in these
areas without irrigation.

In her 1912 novel, The Lady Doc, Cody writer Caroline Lockhart described the coming of
the homesteaders to her fictional town of "Crowheart":

They came in prairie schooners, travel-stained and weary, their horses thin and
jaded from the long, heavy pull across the sandy trail of the sagebrush desert.
With funds barely sufficient for horse feed and a few weeks' provisions, they
came without definite knowledge of conditions or plans. A rumor had reached
them back there in Minnesota or Iowa, Nebraska or Missouri, of the
opportunities in this new country and, anyway, they wanted to move—where
 was not a matter of great moment. Others came by rail, all bearing the
earmarks of straitened circumstances, and few of them with any but the most
vague ideas as to what they had come for beyond the universal expectation of
getting rich, somehow, somewhere, some time. They were poor alike, and the
first efforts of the head of each household were spent in the construction of a
place of shelter for himself and family. The makeshifts of poverty were seldom if
ever the subject of ridicule or comment, for most had a sympathetic
understanding of the emergencies which made them necessary. Kindness,
helpfulness, good-fellowship were in the air.

A drought hit the state in 1910, and a worse drought hit beginning about 1920 leading to the
Dust Bowl. Dry farming generally needed a minimum of 15 inches of rain a year. With the lack
of rain the prospects of dry farming turned to dust with the drought. The state marked a
substantial decline in acreage devoted to dry farming. Additionally, many homesteaders, in what
is now the Thunder Basin National Grasslands, were relocated by the Federal Government's
Relocation Administration in the 1930's. In some instances they were relocated to areas which
were already developed. In others, they were paid $2.05 to $2.21 an acre for their homesteads.
The Relocation Administration was headed by Rexford G. Tugwell, a former Columbia
University professor. Dr. Tugwell was a believer in centralized planning, and justified the actions
of the Relocation Administration in government financed films such as The Plow That Broke the
Plains. The film, an artistic success, blamed the 1930's droughts on the actions of the farmers. It
should be noted, however, that dry farming successfully continues even today in some areas of
eastern Wyoming such as Niobrara County.

Thus, for the most part, the State remains dependent on irrigation for its agriculture. Other
privately developed irrigation plans in addition to those of Tallmadge and Buntin, however, have
proven not to be profitable for the promoters. Wm. F. Cody's plans for irrigation in the Bighorn
Basin made agriculture possible, but provided him with nothing but financial losses. By the same
token, the Wyoming Development Company provided irrigation for some 50,000 acres near
Wheatland. Wheatland has prospered, but the company went awash in red ink, losing more than
$1,500,000 in 50 years.

While some talked of the weather, others tried to do something about it. The idea that the
weather in the American West could be changed started at a very early time. Dr. Ferndinand
Hayden in 1868 predicted that the entire climate could be changed if only each settler would
plant 10 to 15 acres of trees for each 160 acre parcel. Others predicted that the disturbance of air
by trains would produce rain or that plowing of the earth itself produced rain. Thus, Gen. G. M.
Dodge in an 1888 speech in Toledo, Ohio, claimed that "The building of the Pacific roads has
changed the climate between the Missouri River and the Sierra Nevada." Gen. Dodge explained:

Since the building of these roads, it is calculated that the rain belt moves
westward at the rate of eight miles a year. It has now certainly reached the
plains of Colorado, and for two years that high and dry state has raised crops
without irrigation, right up to the foot of the mountains.

The Great Salt Lake, since 1852, has risen nineteen feet, submerging whole
farms along its border and threatening the level desert west of it. It has been a
 gradual but permanent rise, and comes from the additional moisture falling
during the year rain and snow. Professor Agassiz, in 1867, after a visit to
Colorado, predicted that this increase of moisture would come by the
disturbance of the electric currents, caused by the building of the Pacific
railroads and settlement of the country.

[Writer's note: Professor Agassiz, 19th Century naturalist, Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807-1873), professor of
zoology at Harvard University and an opponent of Darwinism.]

Other groups attempted to produce rain. Most rain making efforts were prompted by the
1890 publication of War and the Weather by Edward Powers. The publication stated that rain
was caused by the concussions of loud noises, such as produced by cannons or thunder. The
theory was that the noise of the thunder produced the rain. The theoretical explanation for the
concussions causing rain was given by Sir William Moore, K.C.L.E., Q.H.P. in an 1891 paper,
"Famine: Its Effects and Relief," Transactions of the Pidemiological Society of London New
Series, Vol. XI:

Clouds are masses of minute vesicles. The liquefaction of vapors is their

passage from the gas form to the liquid state. Liquefaction may be due to three
causes -- cooling, chemical affinity, and compression. When an explosion
occurs, compression results; minute vesicles of moisture join together and
become larger drops, and then they fall.

Sir William conceded, however, that the amount of rain so produced would never suffice for the
cultivator's purpose and, instead, governments should rely upon irrigation

In 1891, Frank Melbourne, an Irishman known as the "Rain King," the "Rain Wizard,"
and later by skeptics as the "Rain Fakir," undertook to produce rain in Cheyenne on a contingent
fee basis. If he made it rain he would be paid $150.00. He claimed that for ten years he had
successfully produced rain in the Outback of Australia. Among those contributing to the pot
were F.E. Warren and Joseph Carey, who each contributed $10.00. Setting up in a barn off of
23rd Street, Melbourne confidently predicted he would produce rain on Sunday (so as not to
interfere with work), September 1. As predicted the rains came and Melbourne was paid (it also
snowed in Casper). He then predicted that he could make it rain again by Sept. 6 for another
$100.00, far less than the $1,000, he received the following year in Fort Scott, Kansas. The
second effort was less successful and Melbourne departed for Utah. Later unsuccessful efforts
were also made in Holyoke, Colorado, before Melbourne committed suicide in a Denver hotel.

Elsewhere, others attempted to make rain. The Rock Island Railroad employed one of its
dispatchers, Clayton B. Jewell, on a special train to produce rain. The train was available to
drought parched communities for $500.00. In Texas in 1891, some $9,000 in federal funds were
expended by Robert G. Dyrenforth in an unsuccessful effort to produce rain using explosive
balloons and kites. The explosions were thought to create "air-quakes," the compressive nature of
which created the rain. Governor James Hogg took a personal interest in the effort and planned
on attending some of the tests. Dyrenforth left the state before the governor could arrive. Robert
J. Kleberg of the King Ranch also employed a rainmaker. In most of the west, the employment of
rainmaking magicians with bottles of mysterious chemicals or explosives had ended by 1894.
Yet, even as late as 1915, public funds were spent in some areas on an effort to produce
precipitation.

In San Diego that year, the City employed the self-styled "Moisture Accelerator" and
sewing machine salesman, Charles M. Hatfield to shower the City's reservoir with rain for a fee
of $10,000, payable when the reservoir was filled. In 1905, Hatfield had been employed by the
government of the Yukon Territory to produce rain for placer miners. There he was unsuccessful.
In San Diego, Hatfield constructed a twenty-foot tower near the reservoir from which smoke
emitted upwards from his "evaporating tanks." Sure enough, the rains came, but with a
vengeance. It rained for five days. The reservoir filled, several dams collapsed, a train was
derailed by the force of the water, and houses were washed off their foundations. Efforts to reach
Hatfield to get him to stop the rains were unsuccessful. The telephone lines had washed away in
the deluge, followed by a flood of lawsuits. The City determined that the flood was caused by an
Act of God. Therefore, it was not liable for the damages caused by the floods; nor was it
responsible to Hatfield for the $10,000. Hatfield argued that the City should have taken
precautions for his success. In reality, of course, the production of rain and the efforts of rain
fakirs such as Hatfield, Melbourne, and Jewell, was more a matter of coincidence. In some cases
the rains came before the wizard could start his efforts. If only he had started a day earlier, then
he would have gotten credit. In other instances such as Melbourne in Holyoke, the rains came
after the wizard left town; if he had only stayed around another day he would have been credited.
 WAIC Resources for Harvest and History of Ag and Industry
4th Grade Level
A Day Without Agriculture
Social Studies/Language Arts
• Identify goods and services.
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3-
4%20A%20Day%20Without%20Agriculture.pdf
Capital Cookies
Social Studies
• Students will learn how land, labor, capital,
and enterprise relate to economics in their
community.
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3-
4%20Capital%20Cookies.pdf
Career Quiz
Social Studies/Math/LA/Career/Vocational
Education
• Students will locate professionals from the
resource list to come into the classroom.
• Students will relate their interests to three
possible careers within agriculture.
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3-
4%20Career%20Quiz.pdf
Everyone Up
Social Studies
• Students will identify the components of a
business using a farm as an example.
• Student will discover that farming is a
business with many diverse careers.
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3-
4%20Everyone%20Up.pdf
Forest Fun
Science/Social Studies
• Students develop a connection between
paper and forestry.
• Students learn about the origin of paper and
how it has progressed and changed through
the centuries.
• Students get hands-on experience making
their own paper.
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3-
4%20Forest%20Fun.pdf
Growing Money
Math/Social Studies/Science
• Understand the many aspects involved in
building a business.
• Know what the term “capital” means.
• Show an understanding of vegetative
propagation.
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3-
4%20Gowing%20Money.pdf
Tools of Time
Social Studies/LA/Science
• Students will become familiar with farm
equipment and will recognize how
equipment has changed over time.
• Students will create drawings representing
their prediction for future farm equipment.
• Students will learn about the differences in
farming techniques in Mali, and the United
States.
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3-
4%20Tools%20of%20Time.pdf
The Trading Game
Social Studies
• Explain the influence of geographic and
climatic factors on cultural development.
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3-
4%20Trading%20Game.pdf
What If?
Social Studies/LA
• Students will recognize the interdependence
of the producers and consumers.
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3-
4%20What%20If.pdf
Who’s Hungry
Health
• Students will gain an overview of the AG-TIVITIES W/ TIES TO
importance of getting the food we need. HARVEST AND INDUSTRY
• Students will draw and color a variety of
foods to meet nutritional needs. • Bread in a Bag
• Students will identify people most at risk • Butter in a Jar
from hunger. • Corn Bread in a Bag
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3- • Fool Proof Yogurt
4%20Who%27s%20Hungry.pdf • Hanging Gardens
• Hairy Caterpillar
What Land Works Best • Kick-the-Can Ice Cream
Science/Social Studies • Milk to Glue
• Students will be able to identify the crops • Tortilla in a Bag
grown in all Wyoming counties.
• Students will be able to explain how climate,
water, and soil type help to determine where ADDITIONAL LESSONS
plants and crops are grown. • Ag Pays
• Students will be able to identify the major • Bioburgers
crops grown in the United States. • Food Distribution & Preservation
• Student will learn map reading techniques. • In the Good Old Days
http://www.wyomingagclassroom.org/_pdf/3-
• Potato Brands
4%20What%20Land%20Works%20Best.pdf
• The Source Search
• What Does Ag Have To Do With Me?
• Where is Agriculture?
• Who Needs Agriculture?
• Corn, An A-Mazing Plant
• The Dairy Shoppe
• Finding Your Way on the Farm
• The Peanut Wizard
• Pizza Anyone?
• Clothesline Sleuth
• At Home on the Range
• That Was Then, This is Now
Dry Farming Orchard Near Lusk, approx. 1910.

Dry Farm Cabin, 1912

 Dry Farming Potatoes, 1906

Dry Farming wheat Christensen Ranch, 1906

Dry Farming Exhibit, Wyoming State Fair, Douglas, 1908
Results of Dry Farming Under The Direction of Dr. V. T. Cooke, Near Cheyenne, Wyo.," 1906
Photograph Analysis Worksheet
Select a photograph and look at it carefully. Answer as many of these
questions as you can.

What is the subject of the photograph? What activity or event is shown in the photo-
graph?

When and where was the photograph taken? How can you tell?

Who are the people in the photograph? What can you tell about them from their cloth-
ing or their expressions? What relationship do the people seem to have with each
other?

What do you think happened before the photograph was taken? What do you think
happened after the photograph was taken?

Why do you think this photograph was taken? What questions would you like to ask
the photographer or the subjects?
 Primary or Secondary
Sources About Farmers
Identify the following sources of information about farmers as Primary or Secondary
by circling the Letter. Remember, some can be either one.

P S A farmer’s letter to his mother.

P S A biography of a farmer.

P S A photograph of a barn.

P S An interview with a farmer on television.

P S An encyclopedia article about agriculture.

P S A magazine article about the history of farming.

P S A map of counties where cotton is farmed.

P S An autobiography of a farmer.

P S A textbook about farming.

P S A website about farming.

P S A newspaper article about crops.

Explain why you might want to use a primary source to learn about a topic.