Morris tribune., 1904-08-27

genCe ana no contempt OF natural forces that
he can avoid shall be committed. But the
farmer goes year after year committing the
same old errors. He picks out the grain which
he thinks will yield him the maximum of
profit with the minimum of labor, he puts it
into the ground as best suits his conven-
1ence and then he expects nature to do the
rest Naturally he is subject to frequent dis
appointments and to costly reverses
How far the rust which has wrought such
great loss to the Northwest this season is con-
querable by care and by the application of
scientific measures of prevention we havel yet,
in great measure to learn. But the condition
OF the fields shows that it, too, be helped in
it's work of obstruction by the two great mistakes
that our farmers insist upon committing.
These errors, which reliance upon a single
crop and the practice of putting under cultiva-
ton several times much land as can be care
fully titled, worked nicely into each others
hands. How long will it will be before the
Northwest learns it's lessons and escapes from
them?
| 1t is found this season that rust attacked
wheat principally, and that other grains are
mostly free from injury. This is the first
pointer The farmer who has properly appor-
toned his land among the several products
that it is fitted for Will suffer but partial loss
His other crops will help to make up to him
| for the sCantness of one. No total ruin can
touch him. It is found also, as it is found year
after year, that early sown grain is in best con-
dition. Nature makes no mistakes in this
matter. She has arranged the seasons so that
the plant shall get it's proper start. If it is de-
layed it labors under the same disadvantage
as the runner in any other race. All the hurt
full incidents of drought excessive moisture,
OF fly and bug and wet harvesting season fall
upon it with redoubled force. He sows twice
who early in the year.
Now, the main reason why crops are put in
so late on the whole throughout the Northwest
is the fact that every farmer in trying to cover
from two to four times the that he can
proftably till. He is smothered in his own
desire for big profits. He cannot be brought to
see shat yield of twenty bushels per acre will
bring him Just much return from eighty
acre yield of ten bushe Is per acre from one
hundred and sixty acres, with far less expedi
ture OF labor. So everywhere we find the big
farm, with it's attendant inferior agriculture
and it's rising percentage of loss.
The big farm, unless worked by big capital
and abundant labor, cannot be properly prepared
for the crop. The grain gets into the ground
week two late, The fields cannot be we'll
looked after, and weeds riot luxuriantly. Crops
so ordered are subject to the capricious laws
that govern waste land, where you few
stalks of good grain growing among the wild
products that nature fosters with impartial
the vegetable struggle for existence it is not
always found fttest and 50 fails to survive. A |
drought finds the plant but partly developed
and ready to succumb An early frost cuts it i
yield for every one where the ground has been
thoroughly fitted for it's work and the seed put
in at the first moment that the weather will
permit
The Northwest needs fertilizer, but it
does need tremendously education in these
first laws of agricultural prosperity. To them
every friend of the farmer should return un-
ceasingly. They should be staple topics of dis
at every institute and whenever else
farmers may be gathered together. They are
to the tiller of the soil what knowledge of
tides and winds and currents, of rocks and
shoals and distant coasts is to the mariner.
Disregarding them he is at the mercy of chance,
and misfortune awaits him in every unfavor-
able turn of weather conditions that might
otherwise scarcely bring him inconvenience