The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1879-09-10
FARMING ON A BIG SCALE.
The Dalrymple Farms" in Dakota and
How They are Worked.

FARMING On A BIG SCALE.
The 8 Dalry1nple Farms in Dakota and
How They are Worked.
A correspondent of the Detroit Post
writes from Dakota as follows:
The general statistics of what are COM
monty styled in this. country "Dal-
rymple's farms,'' as given by Mr.. Dal-
rymple, are as follows: The area of
farm lands under his management, scat
tered in large tracts through this part of
the valley of the Red river of the North,
is rs, 900 acres. Some of them are his in
dividual property, but in the most of
them he has half interest, operating
them ION shares with the owners Of
the soil, who are chiefly Eastern capital
lists. This enormous area of prairie lands
matte fashion and under carefully or
gained business system. This year he
has 10000 acres in CROP" and is
breaking up" with the plow 5000
more acres of now uncultivated land for
next years sowing. In seeding he uses
from one and half to one and three
quarters bushels per acre. The method
of cultivation in these new farms on this
large scale may be briefly summarized
thus: Fail blowing, the mellowing of
the plowed surface during the winter,
inches of the top of the earth, harvest in
latter July and early August, threshing
as soon as the reaped grain has sufficiently
dried in the shock, prompt shipping to
the eastern and seaboard markets. In
the various stages of managing the crop
the best class of agricultural implements
are used, and all supplies are procured in
large quantities at central agencies, and
thus at the lowest possible prices. Mr.
Doll ,1la uiu thnca n tN ho
work he gets out of his stock and ma
chinery
He has one span of horses or mules to
each eighty acres of cultivated land, and
one gang plow to every one hundred
acres. He is this season using lis
reapers, all of hem self-binders, and
twenty steam threshing machines. The
first subdivision of great tracts of land
under his control for administrative
over each of which a superintendent has
control. Each tract of 1900 acres is
equipped with complete sets ofbuildings,
machinery and stock, and is also under
distinct superintendent. The buildings
! include home for the superintendent, a
large boarding house for the men, barns,
granaries, blacksmith shops and COM
modious machinery halls. All of these
structures are well built, neat in ap-
pearance and thoroughly equipped, For
the stock each subdivision raises enough
barley and oats, but wheat is the only
crop marketed.
All the principal operations of wheat
raising blowing. seeding, reaping,
threshing, etc.-are carried on by gangs
of men, working under constant super
intendence and in accordance with a
careful plan. Ordinarily each gang
works successfully on tracts of a mile
square, a procession ofplows, of seeders,
of reapers, ETC., as the season may be,
traversing from day to day constantly
diminishing area, always accompanied
by superintendent ard machinery re-
pairers; by this means work is pushed
on Systematically, under constant super
vision and with the fewest possible de-
lays The wages paid to regular 6 farm
hands y is $40 per month and board, ex-
cept during harvest, and there are about
400 names on Mr.. Dalrymple's regular
pay-rolls. During the five weeks of
harvest the work of from 500 to 600 adj
ditional men is required, and the uni
form rate for all of harvest wages is 81
per day and board. Thus far no diff
Guilty has been found in procuring the
necessary help required for harvest
.mong the new settlers on small tracts
of land who have not as yet got their
own lands into productive shape, and
are glad of the opportunity to earn
money at these rates. Working hours
in the busy season commence at six
o'clock and cover daylight.
Mr.. Dalrymple's books show these
averages. The cost of the first wheat
crop on new land, including allowances
for interest on machinery and like items,
is $II per acre; for the second and later
crops this cost diminishes to So per acre.
Of course this low rate is due to con-
siderable extent to the saving effected by
the large scale on which Mr.. Dalrymple
is enabled to purchase food, supplies and
machinery, but land agent Power states
that actual experiment has shown that
farms of few hundred acres can now
be cultivated in this country for wheat
at an average annual cost of not over
$40 per acre, after the land has been
broken up. All the present indications
point to "a yield of from twenty three to
twenty-five bushels to the acre as a safe
estimate of this seasons crop, which will
be of high quality, and can be moved to
New York for fifty cents a bushel Gin
Guiding lake and rail freights, insurance,
commissions, elevator charges, etc).
This indicates a market price at the
nearest depot of from eighty to ninety
cents per bushel for the crop of 1879.
These figures, with ample allowance Tor
margins, indicate that the Dalrymple
farms will in 1879 produce upward of
100000 bushels of high grade wheat, at
a gross cost of not over $l75, 900. insur-
ing a handsome profit to their owners
and operators of about $3.50
|. Operations upon these monster falms
on this scale did not commence until
1875, when two sections were broken up,
and the first wheat crop was gathered in
1876. The results of that Experiment
have led to the vigorous work Of, de-
velopment, which has yielded the
astonishing results just summarized.