Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1904-07-12
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A VALUABLE OPPORTUNITY FOR
FARMERS.

A VALUABLE OPPORTUNITY FOR
FARMERS.
This week fifty farmers of Burleigh
county visit the state agricultural col.
lege at Fargo. The Northern Pacific
and Great Northern roads have made
special rates for farmers, charging
merely a nominal fare, in order that
the farmers of the state may have an
opportunity to study the methods in
force at the college and profit by an
exchange of ideas. For several years
this special rate has been made by the
railroads. The farmers excursion
season began July 18th, when a party
of farmers from Morton county visited
the college. Burleigh county farmers
follow. President Worst of the agri-
cultural college summarizes the bene-
fits to farmers as follows:
The object of the excursion is to
familiarize the farming community
with the work of the experiment sta
ton and to enlist their cooperation in
Improving the agricultural conditions
OF the state. Farmers are too apt to
look upon our work as merely theoreti-
cal; but when they are given an op-
portunity to see the actual work of the
station, this prejudice against theoreti-
cal farming is largely removed. They
find that we are really farming on an
extensive and varied scale, and that
actual results obtained in the field and
garden, form the basis for class room
teaching during the school year. The
visitor sees, growing side by side, field
crops given widely different cultivation,
given different depths and thickness
of seeding, and the effects of preceding
crops upon this years crop. Hundred
of plots Of grain and grasses may be
seen which demonstrate the effect Of
different cultivation methods and the
advantages Of scientific crop rotation.
An these improved and exploded meth
DDS can be seen in a few hours, and
the wide-awake and progressive farm
.er takes note and straightway becomes
a better farmer. OF course a few
visit the station without beneficial re-
suits to themselves. They know all
about farming, having been born on a
farm
The railroad companies are alive to
the fact that whatever, in the way OF
future local development that will
benefit the railroad must come out of
the soil. Improved agriculture means
enlarged railroad business and hence
their interest and disposition to aid
agriculture by giving farmers a cheap
ride to the experimental station and a
pleasant outing along with it.
That our visitors may get the most
Information out of their brief stay, the
following method is pursued. On the
morning after their arrival; (Which is
On the night train, with one or two
exceptions) they are conveyed to the
college armory. Here they are
marshalled into squads of from TWEEN
ty-five to fifty and given a competent
guide who accompanies them through
the gardens and experimental fields,
and explains the purpose Of the differ.
ent civilizations, the reason why one
Held is weedy and another is clean,
why one field promises thirty or forty
. bushels of wheat per acre and another
only eight or ten, why some fields are
total failure, etc., etc. Hundreds of
different varieties of grain, many of
them importations from foreign coun-
tries, being tried out here and their
value under local conditions deter.
s mined. Some of them will be found
useful, but most of them worthless
Extensive breeding experiments also
are being made, for the purpose OF
/ improving oats, wheat, millet, corn,
etc. on the same principle that live
1 stock men improve their flocks and
herds. Ultimately the farmers gets
9 the benefit Of all our successes and is
1 saved the expense Of all our failures.
The barns also are visited, the live
/ stock inspected, the farm machinery
y examined, . short trip made through
the museum and school buildings and
the visitors are conveyed back to the
city for refreshments.
10 the afternoon the excursionista
meet again ID the armory where they
/ are encouraged 70 ask question:, to