In the early 1900s what some historians refer to as the Golden Age of Agricultural, the Dry Farming experience had taken hold. Dry farming is a method of growing crops without the benefit of or very limited irrigation. For some homesteaders they initialy turned to this system, while waiting for a variety of irrigation projects in Lassen County to be completed. By coincidence, everything went fairly well since between 1900 to 1916 was an extremely wet weather cycle. Then beginning in 1917 witnessed the beginning of a twenty year drought, and many a homesteader abandoned their property.