The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1905-01-24
SECRET OF BIG CROPS IN THE
WALLA WALLA VALLEY SAYS
COLONEL r. c. JuDsoN.
Fully Demonstrated by Experiments
and Practice by intelligent
Farmers.


IF the farmers Of the Walla Walla
valley could be prevailed upon to pillow
deeper and give more attention to the
| selection of their seed, the yearly out
put OF wheat would be increased from
Is to 90 per cent" said Colonel r. c..
Judson, Industrial agent for the o. r.
& N. Colonel Judson was in Walla
Walla for a few hours today en- route
to Echo, Or, and at the Hotel Dacres
this morning he gave several interest
| ing illustrations of his researches and
| experiments in this direction during
the past few years.
after several years of careful ex-
perimenting and study the fact has
been established that deep blowing is
the salvation of what is known as the
semi-arid districts. The deeper the
| ground is cultivated the more moisture
it will retain and consequently better
| crops will be raised. AS an instance
will recite little experiment that 1
made in Sherman county, Oregon, last
fall to convince a farmer that such is
the case.
Il had the farmer pillow a dry strip
of ground about 10 inches deep. An
other strip alongside was plowed four
inches deep. Some time afterward
| when 1 was in that section a heavy
recorded a full half inch of precipita-
| ton. The farmer and / visited the
ground that had been plowed and we
found that the moisture on the strip
that had been plowed 10 inches deep
| had penetrated depth of "a inches,
while on the strip that had been plowed
four inches deep the moisture had de-
! scended only 10 inches. On adjoining
ground which had never been Guilt
/ waited the moisture showed depth OF
only two inches under the surface.
The experiment fully satisfied the
| farmer, and today he is blowing his
ground at least eight inches deep and
/ is raising from seven to eight bushels
I of wheat more than he ever raised be-
fore.
! THE selection of seed is matter
by the farmer. and l will recite an
other interesting experiment I made
to convince another Sherman county
farmer that by carefully selecting his
seed he could raise more and better
| wheat to the acre than he was doing
! We took a big box and placing it in
the field filled it with soil taken from
the field l took the seed that he gave
me ana separated the big kernels
from the smaller ones. On one side
of the box I carefully planted the big
seeds and on the other side planted
the smaller ones. The result, to say
the least, was astonishing to Mr.. Farm
err. Where planted the big seeds the
| gram CAME up UIS dIlu NISOTOuS duO
stooled out beautifully. On the other
side the grain came up rather cratic
Some of the stalks were healthy and
vigorous, but many of them were short
and unhealthy looking. The expert
ment fully convinced the farmer that
big, healthy seeds would produce big
healthy crops and last year he soweJ
nothing but big seed. The result was
that he raised II bushels of wheat
more per acre off the ground than he
had ever raised before. To secure the
biggest kernels he constructed a
proper meshed screen and screened
very pound Of wheat sowed.
by following out this plan Of plow-
/ ing deep and carefully selecting their
seed the farmers Of this valley or in
/ any section where wheat is raised can
/ produce at least Is per cent more
wheat than they are doing under pres
/ ent conditions. The cost of blowing
| deeper is but little more and the cost
I of seed is practically the same, but the
| results are certainly worth the extra
=