Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1903-03-30
"FLAx SICK" SOIL.

A remarkable work has been done
by Professor H. l.. Bolley. OF the
North Dakota government agricultural
experiment station, in his investiga-
ton of the causes of flax sick" soil
and the methods of treating and pre-
venting such a condition, says the
Minneapolis Journal. To Professor
Bolley belongs the honor of having
determined the cause of a condition
that has always been attendant upon
fax raising.
The late DIR. Otto Lugger, of the
Minnesota experiment station wrote:
at is well known in Europe that fax
is a plant unkind to its W offspring"
fax does not succeed fax upon the
same soil and remain strong. In Ire
land the idea prevails among many
that the land is 'flaxed out" In Amer
lea, in each new locality in which fax
has been introduced. says Professor
Bolley. 1t has been a short-lived crop.
Iowa was once the banner fax state.
then Minnesota, and now North Da-
kota. Wherever fax has long been
raised. it has generally been aband-
oned as improbable crop. the farmers
explaining that the soil is flax sick"
Many farmers think that fax ex-
hausts the soil. but North Dakota
farmers are finding out that after a ro-
tation of crops fax may again be
p%roftably raised on flax sick" soil.
"As there are thousands of acres
of new soil in the northwest which
are free from this soil disease" writes
Professor Bolley in a recent bulletin,
lone may readily understand the i'm
portance of ascertaining the exact or
first cause, that we may learn its
habits and some method of preventing
its spread and ravages." Flax has
proved TO be a very profitable crop
to Minnesota and Dakota farmers. and
as the number of crops that can be
successfully grown in the north is
limited. it would be a serious matter
of flax had to be stricken from the list,
as it already has been for thousands
of acres. How rapidly fax deterior-
ates on the same land is shown by
the fact that six years of continuous
fax cropping of a piece of rich Red
river valley land reduced it to such
a diseased condition that not a plant
of flax can exist upon it longer than
three weeks from the time of sowing"
Professor Bolley's experiments. and
researches prove that:
Flax is not an %exhausting crop. An
average yield of fax will not remove
from the soil as much, fertility as a
thirty-bushel crop of wheat, or $50
bushels of potatoes.
There is no chemical change
wrought in the soil by the fax that
units it for succeeding crops of flax.
Flax wilt and fax sick soil are
caused by a fungus, Fusarium lini.
This fungus is generally introduced
with the seed. and once in, a field
maintains itself in the soil. CROWNS
more numerous and harmful with each
succeeding crop of fax, on which plant
it feeds.
There is no known way to get the
fungus out OF the soil. but after sew
eral crops of other plants have been
raised, the land will yield a good
crop of flax.
The practical results of Professor
Bolley's discoveries are chiefly in
showing that fax does no exhaust
land, that an occasional flax crop may
be raised on even flax sick soil. and in
gaining information that points out
how to protect undiseased soil from
the c%ontagion. The last is mainly to
be accomplished by treating the seed
with a solution of f~ormaldehyde in
the proportion of one pound of stand
ard strength to forty-fve gallons of
water.
II the farmers of North Dakota shall
generally avail themselves of Pro-
lessor Bolley's advice, the pre-emin-
ence of that state may long maintained
in fax raising. New land may prob
ably. by care, be protected from fax
wilt altogether, especially if the farm
ers give up the practice of raising fax
on the same field year after year. In
what danger the crop already stands
Is indicated by the fact that probably
so per cent of the fax fields OF North
Dakota are infected. It is doubtful