Morris tribune., 1908-09-19


"And yet it is an easily demonstrate fact
that as much wealth can be extracted from the
soil right around us, in Central and Southern
and Northern Minnesota as from that of any
other region. There is no necessity for migrat-
ing. What is wanted is the opening wide of
the doors of the mind to the immigration of the
new ideas which enable the scientific" farmer
to succeed on almost any kind of location-to
gain wealth where the adherent to old ideas
has barely kept himself and family from star
walton. Let the time and money so often spent
in breaking up, moving and getting settled"
ELSEWHERE be spent in attending farm school
courses, in studying the methods of successful
practitioners of "intensive farming" and in
coming the instructive publications of the
federal and state agricultural bureaus, and
ways will quickly be found of making the "old
farm" more productive than ever, Or of develop
ing for the city man unexpected possibilities in
neglected acres close at hand.
"The story is told, is one of our agricultural
papers, of an up-to-date farmer on the outskirts
of St. Paul. who from three and a half acres
planted with onions gets income of some
$4,000 year. Another only year out of the
agricultural school, rents a patch of rough,
stony land, twenty-three acres, and off of it
gathers So, 600 worth of muskmelons. Another,
cultvating five acres Extensively" and ten
more for ordinary single crops, gets from 81 1000
to $4,000 year. Another farm school boy starts
out with eighty rented acres; ten of which he
devotes to horticulture, seventy to ordinary
farming. He finds large money in the ten
acres, none at all in the seventy. So he lets the
latter go to pasture and finds more satisfaction,
far larger income and more LEISURE from con-
fning his work to ten acres. Those ten acres
have made him a rich in ten years.
Cali these are instances occurring right on
the borders of the Twin Cities. Scores of Others
of the nature could be found The lesson
taught is that correct methods of tillage, and
the concentration of effort a few acres, will
enable any one to make much on Mime
sofa land as he make elsewhere. Even the
irrigated lands recently opened hold out no
specially greater inducements. For, although
greater number of crops may be obtained and
sometimes heavier yield, the labor involved is
heavier, the distance from market greater. Be
sides this, the Minnesota may often en-
ploy irrigation easily as it is employed else
where.
ut may be said that the facility with which
larger amounts of manure may be obtained in
the Twin Cities, and the close proximity of a
splendid market, make the instances of success
above cited no fair criterion when applied to
Central and Southern Minnesota at large. But
the new agriculture has other methods of en-
riching and restoring soils besides the hauling
of manure. The raising of alfalfa clover and
other legumes. which fill the soil with nitrogen;
the blowing in of green "soil crops" the pastur-
ing of sheep and cattle, and the practice of good
system of rotation, will work wonders. The
are often achievabIe without it. The advant a ge
of a near market is not to be disputed but al
most every acre in Central and Southern Mime
sofa is more convenient to a market than the
looking for a better chance.
; "Let any urban reader of the Pioneer Press
who has a patch of ground available-even if it |
is only of the dimensions of an ordinary back
pairing the ground, planting it with more
crops, and cultvating it from beginning to end
according to instructions which are now easily
procurable regarding the raising of every kind
prise him. After little experience he will
find that from patch, say, twenty-five feet
square, he gather products which would
have cost him, at the grocers, 500 or more.
x1,o4k -: -.