The Elbert County tribune., 1906-08-02
|IS NOT A HUMBUC'
CAMPBELL SYSTEM DECLARED a
GLORIOUS SUCCESS.
REALLY GREAT DISCOVERY
Insures Regular Crops on Arid Land
--WIIl Be Adopted Slowly Because
Farmers Prefer to Gamble on Wet
Seasons.
(By John E. Leet.)

Soi'bSie scicF " 0dfnoic on WEI
Seasons.
(By John E. Leet.)
"The Campbell system is a glorious
success. 1t is not a mere wet season
humbug, destined to collapse with the
next series of dry years. / have doubt
ed, watched, investigated constantly,
for nine months, and have become alb
sclute:y convinced that 1t is the great
est agricultural discovery of recent
history. 1t will rapidly settle the fer
tile, sunny, beautiful, nealthful, rolling
plains of eastern Colorado and western
Kansas with dense and thrifty popu-
lation."
This says the Denver Republican. is
the summing up OF the dry farming
outlook by John E. Leet, the veteran
real estate man and writer on eco
nomfc and business questions, who
during the past year has travelled some
$1,000 miles through the arid region,
as real estate expert for large Chi
cago and Kansas City land investors.
But the Campbell system needs to
be saved from its fool friends" contin-
ued Mr.. Leet, with some warmth
They are actually claiming that the
fine crops raised in eastern Colo
rado this year will be repeated
every year because they are the result
of the wonderful Campbell system.
This. is not true. This years
good crops on the plains, as
well as those of last year and the
year before. are due almost wholly to
wet seasons. These crops have not
been cultivated according to the Camp
bell system on one farm in a hundred.
But in the rare cases where that
method has been correctly followed
the wheat will average thirty-five bush
els, contrasted with twenty bushels in
the, surrounding fields
While the Campbell system will
double the wheat yield anywhere, 1t
has not been needed this year to make
q paying crop in the semi-arid and arid
regions. except in few drouth spots.
And it is in one of these, in Kansas.
that l witnessed its absolute triumph
and final, decisive demonstration.
While Kansas is making another big
wheat crop it has had no general rain
this season. Capricious showers have
done 1t all. But they wholly missed
one strip, some fifteen miles wide and
fifty miles long, embracing Hays City
and Hill City. 1t is here that the hun
dredth meridian crosses western Kan
sas and marks the eastern edge of the
arid region. The altitude Is about
$500 feet and the annual rainfall av-
erages twenty inches. And it is here.
at Hill City, that the original Campbell
system farm has been developed by
the liberal experimental expenditures
of ]. P. Pomeroy of Colorado Springs,
remarkable young-old man of sew
enty, who is a crack rifle shot and
ideal capitalist.
In the middle of June he drove me
through field of wheat on his Camp
bell farm, cultivated in strict accord
with Campbell's directions, and though
still green it was SO far advanced as
to be certain of from forty to fifty
bushels to the acre; while the wheat
fields all around 1t were burned up ana
will not average seven bushels. This
green, Campbell-Pomeroy field covered
a rolling hill and was like an island In
a yellow sea. A brisk breeze caused its
billows to simmer in the sun until we
had a picture that was beautiful and
a contrast that was prophetic of an en-
pire. For five or six years the Camp
bell system has produced thirty-five
to forty bushels per acre on this farm
compared to good, wet-year. twenty
bushel crops on the surrounding wheat
farms. But the neighbors continued to
cultivate by the old method. They at
tributed the extra yield to the extra
wcrk put on the land and were dubious
of the result if a drouth should come.
This season they got the drouth, good
and plenty as they say. and the Camp
bell system has been indicated be-
yond all question. All are converts
now
"All over eastern Colorado people
are talking constantly about the Camp
bell system. Many have but a vague
idea of what it is, and yet they are
honestly stumbling in the right direc-
tion. A few deride 1t as nothing new.
Some have ridiculous misconceptions
of it. No two that l met could give
the same description of 1t. The know
ing ones dismiss it with an airy wave
of their Geprecating hands and say 1t
is only deep plowing and thorough cul-
tivation, something they have always
understood perfectly. They stop short
just here and do not explain why they
have not practiced what they know so
we'll. Quite a sprinkling of farmers
who read about it last winter for the
first time and then gave their land an
extra narrowing, will tell you blandly
that they have adopted the Campbell
system and that 1t is a good thing. If
something effective is not done to dis
illusionize these well-meaning people
| they will, by their failures when a dry
season comes. give the Campbell sys-
| TEN an undeserved but terrible black
eye.
Now assert that the Campbell sys-
tenn is something new; that it is not
deep blowing; that 1t is not thorough
cultivation, in the sense in which that
term is commonly used; and that there
is not single acre in eastern Colorado
| that has as yet been farmed in full con-
formity with its requirements. Many
are preparing the soil strictly accord
| ing to the Campbell system this year
| in which tn Dlant crOns next wear but