The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-18

y,
the public in general:
On the station grounds to-day were
two visitors. one an old-time farmer
in the Yellowstone valley, the other a
substantial solid farmer from Missouri
(and in giving his home state, it came
out as If he We're proud of the fact,
feeling that other -Missourians might
| copy to advantage, the latter gentle
man was a graduate of Princeton. and
| for aught l could see it hadn't done
| him the least harm. He took an as
! tonishing interest in the few good
things we had to show him. One thing
which appealed to his especially was a
field of Saska tchpwan hard fife wheat
! sent us by the tntroducer. D. L. Well
man, Of Frazee City, MINI. This wheat
was grown on land that produced po-
tatoes last year, stood at height 10
reach the genteman's mouth and he
is about six feet tall, is very thick on
the ground and if nothing prevents full
and perfect maturity, will yield from 80
to 40 bushels per acre.
We shall cut at maturity and for
ward to Mr.. Wellman a sheaf of this
grain. besides samples Of the threshed
grain, and | dare say in the % years
in which he has been laboring with this
same grain, that he never saw the
equal of this produced under irriga-
ton on land which is no better, nor
worse, than rs per cent of the farm
lands of the Gallatin valley.
AS the gentlemen We're leaving l re-
marked that without wishing any bad
luck to old Missouri, 1 wished he could
turn her farmers loose in Montana
with their capital, teams and machin-
cry and set them all at work, that he
would so astonish them in the way of
crop production that they would want
to forget they had ever farmed in Mis-
souri,.
Yes" said the old farmer, I'VE do
need those people and their better farm
Methods
/ there stopped him with these words:
1T has for a long time been the Gus
tom to quote to the Montana farmer
and especially the Gallatin farmer, TIL
some other mythical fellow, east. west
or south. was far better farmer than
our people. and that / for one was tired
of hearing that sort of stuff. That my
travels had taken me over quite large
part of the country and that ] was led
to believe from observation that the
best farming | had seen anywhere was
performed in the Gallatin valley spe-
officially and the state at large in gen.;
eral l am firmly Of this opinion, and
I am not running for office either. This
was then added: The eastern and
southern farmer doubtless takes bet
ter care of his money once he has
earned or produced it, but outside of
the advantage of being schooled in the
closest kind of economy, that on every
other count our farmers We're the peer
of any farming section that l had ever
visited
On this latter proposition it is ex-
tremely difficult to preach economy to
men who were harvesting in the gross
oftentimes. $50 worth of crops per acre
per annum, as has been the case for
several crops past in this valley.
This thought has been borne in on
me on a recent trip to California, the
pioneer and greatest producer of wheat
for many years. She now threshes
about 30.OO0,0 900 bushels annually.
| was informed that the custom there
was on the large grain farms to pioW
and seed at the same time with COM
bined machine, ignoring completely the
functions Of the drag, harrow and disk.
In other words that all was subOrdi-
mated to the economy of labor and
time
I saw them reap these fields, shock
them. stack them and thresh them all
at the same operation, with a ma
chine propelled by 26 big horses and
handled by five men. The grain was
dumped from the machine much as our
self binders would grain sheaVes, save
that the wheat was in seamless sacks
ready 10 be hauled to tide water, there
to be loaded into the holds of vessels
en- route to the worlds markets.
l saw and talked with men who were
charged with the scientific inVestiga-
ton of the states agriculture and to
man. they depOred to me that the
wheat yields were growing less year
by year When they told me that their
sole dependence was on summer fall
al xyNla
tory. When our fields have been
framed as many years as theirs, under
the same methods. our yields, too, will
begin to shrink
was reminded of a conversation
held with one of our best farmers in
May, 1897, when they told me 1t was
the custom to SOW without any fitting
of the soil other than to pillow. ! in
uuired of this friend, have you fin
ished seeding?" No" | went out
Monday morning to begin seeding. l
looked the field over and MADE up my
mind that If I were to work the land all
over once more, with disk and harrow.
that it would make difference to me
this fall of five bushels per acre. So
I have been doing that instead of seed
ing"
II is this painstaking feeling and de-
sire to put fields into the best possible
state of filth in this valley, coupled
with irrigation, That gives TO US the
yields which are the wonderment of the
world
Again, I have never had a visitor on
the station grounds from abroad who
was not profoundly interested in the
machinery and implements used quite
generally in the valley to bring the
farm lands to a uniform plane before
seeding. This may seem to he mat
ter of taste or whim to have hand
some level field prior to placing the
seed therein, Come to irrigatp prop
erly fitted field, alongside one on which
no such work has been, and note the
difference in time required to pass
water over the crop not only the saw
ing in time. but in water as well. We
in Montana do not as vet know the
"a h c. of what water will do, or
rather what it will do when used in Ak
actly the proper amounts. 1t is to get
at correct determination of this point
that is prompting us to make the study
of irrigation the leading work at this
station,