The purpose of this volume is to furnish plain facts in a plain way about the practice of agriculture in the ARID REGION. Whatever its shortcomings, the reading matter here presented is new and original. It has been carved out of a quarter century of experience, observation and study in the dry parts of the West. No attempt has been made to compile scientific data or write a cyclopedia. We have tried to present enough of the practice and underlying principles of arid farming to enable any intelligent man to “make good” on a Western farm.
We feel that this book will, in a measure, meet a “crying need of the hour.” The West is now rapidly settling up with new farmers and new stockmen whose measure of success is proportional to the quick and reliable information they are able to obtain. Books on agriculture written from the view point of the farmer or scientist in the humid East, generally are good books, but they do not supply the arid farmer with the most important facts.
In the present book we try to give some idea of soil tillage and crop production in the Arid Region. Our admiration is great for the men who are unselfishly helping to solve Western. farm and ranch problems, and we invite kindly criticism of the following pages, that we may make them better and more useful.
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Burt C. Buffum, MS Born in Indiana in 1868, Buffum was raised west of Fort Collins, Colorado, on his father’s sheep ranch. Upon graduating in 1889 from the Colorado Agriculture College (now CSU), he... |