The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-12-24
WHAT A FARM!
NJ. M. Sherman of Ellsworth
Employs $50 Men.
Makes a Speciality of Raising
and Fattening Cattle.
40 nHnuSAND ACRES
10 THOUSAND ACRES.
That is the Extent of the Land
Controlled by Him.
Mr.. Sherman, Who Was in To-
peka, Talks of His Work.

l q Ae~~
which there were from so to 150 hired
men employed; on which there were T.
| 600 head of cattle; from which 2.500
head of fat steers are shipped to mar
| ket annually; a farm which takes UP
| nearly two townships and on which S.
| 600 acres of rough feed are raised each
| season? farm on which three book
| keepers and stenograpners are kept
busy looking after the business
That is the scale on which M. M.
Sherman, who was in Topeka Monday
! attending the reciprocity conference,
| conducts his farm-or ranch, more pro-
perly-in Ellsworth county.
Mr.. Sherman'S ranch is primarily for
raising and fattening cattle. Although
farming operations are conducted on a
large scale, they are secondary to the
cattle business and nothing but forage
and corn for feeding purposes is raised.
There are 1000 head of cattle on the
ranch at present.
The headquarters of the ranch are
about four miles north of Geneseo.
From there it extends away for miles.
There are 10000 acres in the ranch
about 63 sections, or one and three
fifths townships. It is SO big that it is
divided into three divisions and tele-
phone lines lead from the headquarters
to the different parts of the ranch to
facilitate communication.
The ranch is owned by a syndicate
Which raises all of it's own cattle for
the market. and it is probably the big
gest ranch in the country that does
this. There are larger ranches which
raise more calves in a year, and there
are feeders who handle more fat cat
tie in a year, but on this ranch calves
are kept and fed until they are ready
for market. and on no other ranch in
the country is so large a business of
this nature conducted.
The crop of this ranch this year
amounted to 1900 head of calves, and
there are now about $500 head of fat
Fa1 ,<.fs ~.1e-
as many as 5000 cattle fed and market
ed in a single year. feeder for this
ranch is maintained by the same COM
pany in Sonora, Mexico It consists of
about 100,8 600 acres and is used exclus-
lively for breeding purposes. When the
steers are about year old they are
shipped to the Geneseo ranch to be de-
veloped and fattened. But that is all
in addition to the great number raised
on the Kansas ranch.
It is much more difficult to organize
farm work than the labor of any other
industry, but Mr.. Sherman has his en-
ployes SO well organized that he can
tell at any time just how much work
each of the 100 more men did on a
given day, how much feed certain
field produced, or how much a certain
bunch of cattle have consumed. This
is where the work Of the stenographers
and bookkeepers comes in.
The ranch is divided into three divis-
ions. In each division there is a farm
foreman and a cattle foreman. Over
all is a superintendent. Each foreman
has maps of the farm drawn on scale
of IS inches to the mile. Every night
each foreman counts the rows of corn
or forage that each man has planted or
plOwed, or the number of loads of feed
and the distance each man has hauled
it, together with the field from which
it was hauled and the cattle pen to
which it was fed, and all this the fore
man reports daily to headquarters,
either in person or by telephone BY a
If mi rxrhf Nv ,ay,
has devised this entire record can be
easily and almost instan taneous1y made
and from these records the bookkeepers
can tranScrlbe the accounts of the diff
ferent lots of cattle or the various fields
to the proper ledger accounts.
The men are paid $40 a month regu-
1arly and those who remain full year
receive an additional IS a month at the
end of the year, in addition to their
board and lodging.
THE most valuable thing we have
done on the ranch in my estimation, Is
proving the practicability of deep plow-
ing" said Mr.. Sherman. This is not,
of course, new idea with us. but we
have done it on a larger scale than any
one else / think. I have no hesitation
in saying that we raised double the crop
this year that we would have raised had
we not deep plowed. If 1t had been a
wet year the difference would not have
been so great.
1--WE do not always have sufficient
rainfall to properly mature our crops,
and yet we have enough to raise them
if it is done properly. The trouble with
most people who have tried deep plow-
ing is that they have turned up too
much earth at once. They have gone
down six or eight inches with the re-
suit that the following year they have
raised no crop. The trouble has been
that all that earth has never had the
action Of the sun and air on it and
The proper way is to pillow about two
inches deeper each year until you get
eight or ten inches deep. Then the
land should be narrowed thoroughly as
soon as it is plowed-the same day.
Otherwise it will dry out and the mois-
ture will be gone instead of saved. An
other thing: We raised as much on
our uplands this year with deep plow-
ing as we would have raised on bottom
lands with shallow plowing."
About five thousand acres of the
ranch are farmed each year. The usual
crops are two thousanr acres of corn,
two thousand of Kaffir corn, and one
thousand of sorghum. There is about
1900 acres of wheat growing on the
ranch, but this is solely for pasturage
during the winter and will be plowed
up in the spring.
Mr.. Sherman is hunting for a prac-
teal way to farm by machine power
instead of horses. He started out by
investigating the steam plows which
they are not practicable except where
the moisture can be entirely controlled
as is the case in irrigated districts In
Kansas a rain is likely to cone Just
when one wants to plow and a steam