The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-07-13
A GIANT FARM IN KANSAS

Two thousand ceres of corn are planted
on the lowlands, while on the upland is
planted the forage, 1000 acres Of sor-
| ehum and 1000 acres of Katfir corn. In
| the fall about 800 acres of wheat are
sown for pasturage during the winter
months. The rest of the ranch is large
ly taken up with pasture land The larg
est area of land in a single pasture is
700 acres and most of the pastures con-
tain much less than this. There are cat
tie of all ages ard sizes from young
calves up to feeders" and fat beeves.
More thin 1000 calves are born on this
farm every year. Those that are good
| for beef cattle sre fed with that in view
and they are augmented by. otners ship
ped in from Mexico. SO that the total
number fattened for market eacn year is
upwards of 5000, or more than $50 car
loads.
Cattle which are fattened for tho mar
ket are fed not only corn and rough feed,
but meal Of different kinds, and bran
and cottonseed meal.A great deal Of the
COIN is ground, cobs and all, before it is
! fed to the cattle, and all the fodder is
| shredded. A force of twelve men and
sixteen horsepower gasoline engine are
kept busy running the machinery which
! shreds the fodder. Mr.. Sherman believes
that the process adds 80 per cent to the
| value of rough feed.
In the GUNNER time the men work from
Z o'c'Hck in the morning till in the ev-
enine. with two hours off at midday.
During the winter the hours are shorter.
Ey cry evening the former telephone to
Headquarters the details of the work ac-
complished during the day. BY an in
genious system of blank reports which
Mr.. Sherman has devised boolSkeeper
can make record of work done as fast
as reports come over Telephone.
The employees are paid $40 a month and
board. Those who are at work on Octo-
Der of each year are paid a bonus of IS
a month for all time they have been con-
tinuously employed. This is to prevent
an exodus from the ranch into the wheat
fields during the harvesting and thresh-
ing seasons when wages rise for a short
time. The farm hand who works on
Sherman ranch the year round thus re-
ceives s25 month, which is considerably
more than is paid the average farm hand.
If man Is married he is given q house
to live In, rent free. and is allowed SO
a month extra for his own poard, and
If his wife wishes to do so she has a
chance to board some of the single farm
hands
Sherman ranch, though it is devoted
almost exclusively to raising and fatten-
ing cattle for beef market, is almost in
the centre of the Kansas wheat belt.
produced in 1901 nearly four million
bushels OF wheat. Mcpherson county,
to the east, raised three and half mil
lion bushels. Ellsworth county, in which
the big farm is located, raised 2,335,00O
bushels.
None of the counties produce less than
million bushels of wheat last year, and
some went nearly as high as seven mil
lion.
Mr.. Sherman is now trying to devise a
method of blowing by power by the use
of two engines, one at either end of the
field, propeling a cable between them;
to which the plows may be attached.
He believes this to be the best solution
Of the blowing by power problem, pre-
yided a gasoline engine can be made
with sufficient weight to propel the plows
and still not be too heavy for practical
utility. In fact. every experiment which
is made In the work of the farm is COM
mensurate with the size of the farm and
its CROP But nothing is unwieldy and
tho entire little state which the Sherman
farm makes swings along with better
system and with greater profit than
commonwealth a century old.