Great Falls weekly tribune., 1895-01-18
ABOUT DIVERSIFIED FARMING,
Washington MuZzy Tells the Farmers
Institute What lie Knows
About Farming.
The Successful Farmer Should Have
Il Good Many Strings to
His Bow.

1air, nelu DY Inc laule6 OF tne ITesDy
terian church, and speaking of the kind
of man required to make a successful
farmer, he said:
1t is said that we must not have "too
many strings to our bow"
This cannot apply to our farmer for
he will have many strings to his bow as
he must put on every string possible to
his resources and environments.
Wheat is a good string when it is not
the only string.
Stock raising is a good string when
among other strings
Dairying is a good string but pays
best among other strings.
Oats, barley, flax, corn, potatoes, etc,
are all good strings, but each sometimes
fails. hence cannot be depended upon
alone.
So of fruit.
Pork-raising and poultry to succeed
best must be- attended by the other
strings to the successful farmers bow.
The successful farmer will know too
much to follow any pet theory when
neither soil nor climate makes it possible
for that theory to be a successful one.
He will know that some farm work can
not be successfully done on horseback.
He will know the soil he has to deal
with and how best to utilize the scant
supply of moisture nature provides here;
and that lands on a clayey, hard sub
soil must be broken and loosened up
deep, the deeper the better, and the sur
face puIverized perfectly in order to
secure deep penetration by the natural
water supply, and hold it as an under.
,oI, l. .>c Il
winds, and still be within reach Of his
crop roots.
If his soil has sand subsoil, that will
act AS drain for all surplus moisture,
he will cultivate shallow and use the
farm roller freely. In this climate he
will have his ground prepared in the
best manner in the fall SO that he can
put in his small grain at the earliest
date possible in tho spring while both
air and soil are cool, to avoid excessive
evaporation consequent upon stirring
the soil.
The successful farmer never allows his
ground to become overrun with weeds,
for he has learned that every weed is Il
very effective little pump. that eXhauste
the soil of moisture and fertility as no
useful crop of his sowing can. To pre-
vent this he will aim at rotation that
includes summer fallow, when he can re.
duce all weeds and volunteer stuff to
green manure. He will SOW wheat in his
course of rotation, but not all wheat
He will SOW oats and barley, but will
SOW each ir their just proportion for he
has plans to work to and works to them.
lie is going to need in carrying out his
plans big LOT of forage other than hay,
Il llnS< al f.,,
age crop, and cuts all his grain when the
straw is green enough to make useful
forage.
Our successful farmer has found that
any early variety of corn does well on
these lands, producing a paying crop of
grain and fodder, when cultivated and
cared for, as he used to do in other corn
states, so he plants good sized field OF
it; for right well he knows that for an
all around standby, corn heads the list.
Some peas and sweet corn, to push his
spring pigs, goes in too.
He will make it point, and count the
labor well spent that secures him an
abundant crop of roots potatoes, bagas,
beets and carrots--for he depends on
these to help him carry out his winter
plans, as no other crop can. in feeding
steers, holding big flow of milk and
feeding pigs.
That garden of his is Joy to the eye
and to the happy housewife as we'll, for
she eees there an abundance of what will
enable her to vindicate her culinary skill
in getting up dinner that will rejoice
the heart of the hungry and cause the
divorce advocate to look on with an evil
eye, for we'll does he know that sumptu-
4 IaI g. "A
dustry.
The successful farmers currant bushes
(for he has them in plenty never fail to
be loaded in their season, and so of his
appl4 trees and such other fruit az this
climate allows him.
He hasn't much time or money to
spend on novelties or doubtful varieties,
go leaves them to amateurs. But he
does put all the stock on his farm that
it will carry at profit SO as to feed all
his grain, if possible, on his farm and
turn off his crops in the most concen-
trated form and save manure. He has
figured cost and profit 80 he is able to
put just the breed of cattle on his farm
that will best accomplish what he
aims at.
BY selection among the hefers of his
OWN ThlSluk Ic eVOH lac u ctIluIl DuuSl
of COWS that, while not record -smashers,
are paying him we'll for the feed and
care he gives them, both summer and
winter. He ia too smart to let them go
dry in winter when "butter is butter"
He sees to it that at least half of them
are at their best while the others are dry.
He too has found that COW is only an
other sort OF mill that grinds the feed he
gives her into milk product, and il he
gives little he gets little, so feeds her
much and gets much
Now his abundant root crops come into
play, and now his latter harvest begins
and when others are idle and holding
down chairs and goods boxes in places
where it would be better il they we're
not, he is reaping well earned profits.
Being poor as to money, and yet re
solved to give shelter to all his stock, he
has constructed stables OF sod ano
covered them with hay; so lot the storms
howl, he has foreseen them and is ready
No wire fence shelter for stock in his,
In those sod stables you may see his
two year old steers and heifers, sleek anc
lusty, for they never knew hunger mol
excessive storm; so that at 80 to "a