Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1884-11-13
The Future Farmer.
From the Garden City Sentinel.

From the Garden City Sentinel
There can hardly arise a question of
doubt in the hind of any reasonably
intelligent man that farming under ir-
rigating bitches in Finney county is no
longer an experiment but an actual,
demonstrated proposition, with success
written on every kind of crop that has
been sown or planted here, save per-
haps a single exception-that of corn
and so nearly wrought out to a success
full demonstration as to warrant one in
saying that in five years time corn will
be grown here more su ,cessfully than
in eastern Kansas. But, dependent on
single line of railroad for transporta-
ton, it will not, at the prices now OBJ
tanned, pay the farmers to raise wheat
for the great grain markets of the
country. The most farmers can do in
this line will be to raise sufficient wheat
for home consumption. Oats have and
will be grown here and the prices OBJ
tanned will pay the farmer, but when
enough oats are raised to supply the
home demand the farmer must stop, as
the oats grown here, if shipped away,
must, Of necessity, come in competition
with the very oats that have heretofore
supplied the market. Corn has, as
above stated, not been up to this time
a success, but will be in the near future
counted on as safely as any other crop
for good return; home market will
consume all the surplus the farmers will
be likely to have, as will be seen fur
Their along.
The time is very near at hand when
all the government land, on the north
side of the Arkansas river, in Finney
county will be taken as homestead. pre-
emption or timber-culture claims, and
the time is even now when it is hard to
find such claims under the irrigating
bitches. Ard what is true of
the government lands, is also true
of the lands belonging to the Santa Fe
railroad, which extend ten miles on
either side of the road-bed. These
lands are being bought up in larger or
smaller boundaries by stockmen for
stock purposes. We think it takes no
far-seeing man to read the signs of the
times, and by putting this and that to-
gether, to tell you that the day of large
herds of cattle being kept within the
limits of the bitches are numbered, and
that the rule will be small herds and
more of them, and each herdsman will
be limited to his own ranch for range.
This will of itself force stockmen to
feed during the winter, and will create
demand for hay and fodder heretofore
unknown in this country. We will
take look at our resources for supply
ing this demand.
Three varieties of grasses are found
here indigenous to the soil, the buffalo,
the gramma and the blue-stem; the first
two are excellent for grazing purposes
and cures we'll on the ground naturally
for winter feed. Either of the three
grasses make excellent hay, and turns
out about two tons to the acre. There
is very much more of this kind of hay
put up here now than any other, if not
all other kinds in the country. Millet
is grown here and will yield as much as
ten tons to the acre. This makes ex-
cellent hay, but has the Objectionable
feature of having to be sown every
year. Alfalfa, grass of the clover
family, Is grown here and is said to be
the best hay yet known to this country
for sheep, cattle and horses. Three
crops per season can be harvested from
this grass and the yield is two tons per
acre, or six tons per acre for the sea-
son, and is perennial. For fodder, sor-
ghum is sown, and the return per year
is enormous. 1t makes an excellent
food for sheep and cattle. No part of
the state excels, if it equals, Finney
county in the production of sorghum,
either for fodder or saccharine purposes.
There is a great grass known as John
son grass, which has been grown here
to very limited extent, but is said to
give excellent results. 1t will grow to
be six or seven feet high, but the stem
becomes of too woody a nature for
food; it should be cut when eighteen or
twenty inches high and two or three
crops per year may be gathered, and
the turmoil per acre will exceed any
other except sorghum. The johnson
grass is perennial, and is said to be
hard to get rid of when once we'll set.
From what we have said, it will be
seen that We can grow any or all the |
cereals, and in grasses for hay or fodder
we abound. Hence we may conclude |
that the farmers need not, of necessity, |
plant or SOW his land in corn or wheat,
but can SOW such grain as will in his
judgment bring him the greatest return
for his labor.
Stockmen are agreed that if the
humidity Of the climate continues to in
crease over what it was the past season
or even remains at that, that it will be
necessary even where the range is not
restricted to prepare hay to carry the
stock over the winter. And much more
will this be the case in the farming dis
tricts where sfocImen are confined to