The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-09-04
ELLIS COUNTY BOOMS.
F. Burleigh johnson Says There Is
Millions of Bushels of Wheat.

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"A conservative estimate of the
amount of wheat which Ellis county
will raise this year I would place at
about three and half million bushels, -
said F. Burleigh johnson of Ellis coun-
ty in discussing Kansas crops. Mr..
johnson is travelling over the state col
Letting crop samples for the agricul-
tural exhibit at the st. Louis EXPOSE
ton next year, and he knows whereof
he speaks.
Il do not know of a single field of
wheat in Ellis, Trego. Cove, Graham
or Logan counties that will make less
than twenty bushels to the acre." he
continued, and some fields will make
as high as fifty bushels. These last are
the fields on which the Campbell sys-
tenn was used. The best wheat was
probably in Cove county. The acreage
was not very large, but a large num-
Der of the farmers there have adopted
the Campbell system and are using it
right along.
been experimenting with the Campbell
system in wheat raising for four or five
years, and his wheat crop this year
shows that it is the way to raise wheat.
1t takes more wheat and man cannot
farm as big an acreage. but his crops
will aggregate more than under the old
system.
This year Mr. Baeugher sowed three
hundred acres of wheat and used the
Campbell system of cultivation. He
had threshed part of his crop before l
left home Monday, and forty acres of it
had made fifty bushels to the acre, ana
Just heard yesterday that the entire
field of 200 acres had yielded over A
bushels to the acre. Other farmers nave
raised so bushels to the acre on smaller
fields with the Campbell system, but 1t
is unusual to have such q large yleld
on a big acreage. The average on fields
where the old system of cultivation was
used was from twenty to thirty ousheis.
Under the Campbell system the
ground is plowed again as soon as pos
sible after the crop is harvested IN
July. 1t is plowed very deep ana
subsoiler is used to throw out some OF
the deep soil to be mixed with the old
soil on top of the ground. This plan
brings up some new soil each year and
is better than If it were all new or all
old. Then the ground is narrowed I'M
mediately after the pillow, and 1t is also
narrowed after each rain during the
summer in order to conserve the mo1S-
ture. 1t is also narrowed just before
seeding. A press drill is used to SEED
the ground and the subsoil is packed.
Then it is narrowed again, and II II
will stand it when the wheat is up about
three inches. it is narrowed again 1t
is better to pasture the wheat during
the winter if the ground is frozen, and
then as soon as the frost is out OF the
ground in the spring it is narrowed
again. This is the last time over it
until it is harvested. and then the
ground is Immediately plowed again for
the next years CROP.
Mr.. johnson says that he has never
seen as good corn as Kansas is raising
this year except in two or three sea-
sons in Iowa in the early days. He also
says that Jewell county will undoubted-
ly take its old place this year as the
banner corn county in the state. He
says Jewell will probably have the larg-
est corn crop it has ever raised.
Representative F. w. Bevington OF
Jewell county, who has been in Topeka
this week says the same thing.
"Our corn crop is simply immense,
said Mr.. Bevington. Jewell county
will again be the banner corn county
this year. a place we have lost In re-
cent years, although we held 1t for eight
ears in succession. We will have as
much corn this year as we did In 1885,
Jewell county raised over ten million
bushels of corn in one year in its PALM
lest days.