Woodruff County news., 1901-12-07
FARMER AND PLANTER.
UP-TO-DATE FARMING.
eDssEts to Be Derived from Getting Out of the old Ruts in Rum
 ming the Farm.

The agricultural college of Illinois has, during the past few years, made a practice of sending one or more members of its faculty to almost every farmers institute in the state to tell what scientific agriculture is, and, in cidentally, to advertise the college and it's work. This brings the college to the people it was intended to educate and benefit. It interests the young men and opens the eyes of those who have grown gray tilling the soil. It has proved a great factor in over- coming the peculiar disfavor with which "book farmers" have been re- garded by the old-style farmer, These old men are beginning to see that there is something more in farm ing than mere blowing, sowing and reaping. They are beginning to see that learning creates skill, and that skill is now a necessity on the farm. The day of the ten-inch iron blow and the hundred-pound siX-foot har- row is past. The wearisome trudging after such implements that made the bright boy hate the farm is gone, never to return. We now have imple- ments that require skill instead of mere muscle to operate them to the best advantage. The young farmer IS now almost an engineer. Instead of merely steering a team of horses or yoke of oxen across a field, shuf- fling along after them in a weary, unlnterested manner, he rides on the implement and manages it so that he accomplishes three to five times as much as he could with the old-style tools.
 The managers and workers in the experiment station connected with the college have thoroughly tested most of the improved implements manu- facturcd, and nave learned which will do the best work and give the best satisfaction in the widely-different soils in the state, and they tell this to the farmers at their institutes so that they may buy intelligently. This one feature makes it we'll worth any farmers time to attend the insti- tutes. Furthermore, they explain the results of their work in improving the cereals, especially corn; what the soils in the different parts of the state need to make them produce better crops; the results obtained in hundreds of experiments in the dairy and in feeding for milk, butter-fat, in the management of cream, butter and cheese. All these things are eye openers to the old farmer who is still jolting along in the rut his father followed. They interest the young farmer and lead him to investigate these matters still farther to learn how he may till his soil better and at the least expense; how he may increase the yield and value of his crops to himself.
 Said a farmer-one of those up-to. date farmers who are sufficiently alive to their own interests to keep fully abreast of the advance in agriculture: ''I have seventy acres of corn this year, and it is yielding about sixty bushels an acre. Last year it yielded one hundred and four bushels an acre, but that was an exceptional sea- son. The com is good, ears large
 
 storm in July, that broke down large number of stalks, the yield would have reached eighty bushels an acre." l asked how he managed to secure such a yield sl season like the past. 'Tll tell you,' he replied, "just how l raise corn, then you can see for yourself how 1 obtained such a fair NialH thic ont the stalks with a stalk-cutter, plowed the land six inches deep, leading behind me horse dragging a section of harrow six feet wide. The horse walked in the furrow behind me, and the har- row broke up the soil turned over by the blow. Two days after the blow ing disked the land, setting the disks nearly straight; then it was planted, three and four grains to the hill three feet apart. After the planting the harrow with teeth slanted backward one notch was kept going on it un- til the plants appeared. When about four inches high we started the cul- tivators and kept them going, rum ming two to three inches deep, until the plants were too high to pass un- der the bow I disk after blowing to fine the soil and crush it down into the air-spaces formed under meath the surface when the soil is turned by the blow. Fred Grundy, in Farm and Preside.
 
 A FEW DAIRY GLEANINGS.