Successful Wheat Growing in Semiarid Districts

There has been much discussion in recent years of the question of the future wheat supply of the world, and in some quarters fears have been expressed that by the end of the next thirty years we may experience a universal wheat famine, provided that the present rate of increase of the bread-eating population and the present yield of wheat per acre shall continue.^ It is not the purpose to enter into this discussion here, except to say that the subject is at any rate one which deserves serious consideration, and is of interest from the standpoint of the agricultural scientist, as well as from that of the statistician. Whether such a failure in the wheat supply shall come sooner or later, there is no question as to the need of giving attention to all possible means of increasing the product of the lands that are already farmed. By this means there may be accomplished the double purpose of increasing not only the general supply of wheat, but also the profits derived by the individual farmer from a given amount of land. At present a very good opportunity of making improvements which shall be productive of immediate returns is to be found in the development of the semiarid districts. There is no general agreement among agriculturists as to what part of the country may be properly called semiarid and what part should be considered completely arid. Ideas concerning the line that should separate the semiarid from the humid region are equally indefinite. In fact, there is possible need of a fourth term—semihumid—to designate a region lying between these last two. In this paper the term semiarid may be understood to refer, approximately, to that portion