The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1905-09-14
COUNTY EXPERIMENT PLAN.
Page County has Adopted plan of
Using Poor Farm for Expert
ment Station.

A number OF counties in the state OF
Iowa have adopted the plan of convert
ing the poor farms into local expert
ment stations, and with most gratifying
results, so gratifying, in fact, that we
hope it will not be many years till
every county in every state where
Wallace's Farmer circulates will have
adopted the practice. In fact they
must do so, if the farmers in these
counties are to reap the full reward of
their laborS.
Last week while at the Chautauqua at
Clarinda we embraced the opportunity
to visit the Page county poor farm,
which has adopted the method this
year for the first time. The scope of
these county experiment stations is
have poor farms and each has man.
ager. Therefore opportunities for
carrying on limited class of expert
ments at small expense are very
great. We have suggested all along
that they limit themselves to expert
menting with the varieties of corn that
farmers are actually planting in the
county.
Page county is experimenting with
forty-seven blocks of corn planted from
seed from the planter boxes of forty
seven different farms. The soil of the
portion of the field set aside to these
experiments is remarkably uniform,
each block separted from the rest by
the omission of a row on each side, and
each properly labeled. The soil in that
county is not surpassed in the state or
any other state for growing corn, and
we expect to hear of from fifty to one
hundred-bushel corn on these different
blocks. We expect to see difference
of from twenty to thirty bushels per
acre between these plots, due entirely
to the kind of seed sown. In some of
these blocks we noticed that the stand
is almost perfect. In others, where the
seed was apparently as good as any to
outward observation, there will not be
more than two-thirds of a stand. This
will make a. large difference. Then
there will be 4 difference in the adapta-
ton OF varieties of corn to that lat
itude, although we don't expect to see
as much difference as there has been
shown in some of the other counties of
the state.
In the field devoted to the corn crop,
the superintendent has experimental
with corn checked in the usual way,
corn drilled in the usual way, and corn
listed; and the farmers of Page county
will learn more than they have ever
learned in one year before, provided the
reports are made out accurately, which
we nave no doubt they will be, and the
county newspapers give it sufficient
and is cheerfully paid by the county
supervisors for the public good.
The county is also experimenting
with, alfalfa, but is meeting with the
usual poor success which comes from
sowing alfalfa seed on soil not inocu-
lated, and in the spring of the year.
Part of this land, at least, is now being
plowed up and will be seeded to alfalfa
this fall, and from this we hope for
better results, provided it is inoculated
either by soil from other fields or in
some other way. We have suggested to
them mixing the seed with alfalfa meal
for the purpose of securing better
incubation.
The alfalfa experiments in Page
county are really duplicates made on
j. our farm near Des Moines last year
We were obliged to plow up our alfalfa
sown in the spring, but had fortunately
sown a piece in the fall on whea t
ground which had been hogged down
with pigs that had been fed on alfalfa
meal. The result was a growth of ten
inches in six weeks from sowing and a
wonderful growth during the past sea
son. We attribute this increased CROP
partly to the fact that weeds don't
trouble alfalfa sown in August, and
a partly to the fact that the ground was
innoculated by the droppings of hogs fed
t on alfalfa meal. We don't know how
f much of the success is attributable tc
T? one or the other, but the results are
: such as to justify our suggesting to
8 other farmers the adoption of this
i method. Time will show by and by
whether the success is due mostly tt
the fall sowing or to the alfalfa mea
incubation. At any rate it don't cos
much to try it.-Wallace's Farmer.