The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1908-07-16
BEST RESULTS
ONLY FOLLOW
Intelligent and Well Directed
Efforts
IN RAISING CROPS As ELSEWHERE
Hence Noted Editor LdudS
Work of Our College

Hon. Henry Wallace, the we'll known
farm editor of Des Moines, Iowa, de-
lvered two addresses in Brookings at
the time of the farmers excursions to
he State college the first week in June
After his return home he made the
following interesting observations of
his trip, which appear in Wallace's
Farmer of June 26:
We had the pleasure the first week
in June of visiting the South Dakota
Agricultural College and Experiment
Station at Brookings, and addressing
the farmers who came in on excursions
from the north on the 4th and from
the south on the 5th. 1t was a great
pleasure to us to meet large number
of our subscribers, who have moved
there from Iowa and other states and
have taken WallaceS Farmer with
them. A hopeful, CHEEKY lot of people
were these farmers, their wives, sons
and daughters. 1t is their great privl-
lege to lay the foundations of a new
state, to determine not merely the
character of it's farming, but to give
tone to its society and to- determine
to large extent its government. 1t
it to only one generation in hundreds
of years that this opportunity comes.
the farmers of South Dakota have
this great advantage, that they can
note the mistakes in farming that
have been made for two hundred years
in the eastern and middle states and
in some of the western states, and by
avoiding them maintain permanently
the fertility of the South Dakota soil
and develop the type Of farming which
will be necessary if the farmers of the
country are to be prosperous in the
century upon which we have entered.
We pointed out to these people that
this was the great problem not merely
for the South Dakota farmer but for
the farmers of all of the newer sections
of the west; and furthermore, that in
solving this problem they should rely
largely on the agricultural college and
the experiment station, the agricul-
tural college teaching that which is
certainly known and the experiment
station discovering the unknown.
There are a great many things un-
known in South Dakota. For exam
pie, no one yet certainly knows the
best rotation for the moister sections
east of the Jim river, and still less
methods of cultivation necessary to
success in the semi-arid portions, es-
pecially west of the Missouri river in
that state.
The experiment station is giving eff
cient aid to the farmers in solving
these problems, having now two SUBJ
stations with a possibility of two or
three more located under the widely
linz In, hot
state; for South Dakota does not have
the uniformity of either the Iowa soil
or the Iowa climate The eastern por-
tion of the state, that adjoining Iowa,
is similar to Iowa, and Iowa conditions
prevail. Here Iowa methods OF cul-
tivation can be followed. Minnesota
methods of culture can be adopted in
the portion lying directly adjoining
Minnesota and for fifty or one hundred
miles west Whenever we cross the
Jim river we have an entirely differ
ent set of conditions, and still a diff
ferent set as we approach the Black
Hills.
The South Dakota Agricultural Col
lege under President Slagle has done
better work than it has ever done be-
fore, and there is bright promise or
future usefulness. We are always
more interested in the discovery or
the unknown than in the known, for
the reason that in agriculture the
future success depends largely on find
ing out things that we do not at pres
ent know. or upon which We have not
reached fixed and definite conclusions.
Prof. James w. Wilson, director of
the station, is greatly aiding the farm
ers in solving the question, all
important to that state, of rotation
of crops that will yield profit to the
farmer and that will maintain the fer
tility of the soil.
There is large portion of the state
in which corn can be grown only for
home use. 1t is not what might be
called a corn country, and hence the
rotations that have been adopted by
progressive farmers in the corn belt
proper will not apply. Much of this
state can not be considered clover
country; and as there can be no rota'
tion worthy of the name without some
sort of a legume, the problem of find
ing legumes adapted to the different
portions of the state is one of the most
important of all problems.
In the vicinity of the college the
clovers and all grasses peculiar to the
corn belt grow luxuriantly. There is
no difficulty whatever in growing
alfalfa except the difficulty that is to
be met everywhere in the corn belt
that of keeping the grasses out OF It,
for this station is but few miles west
of the Iowa line. Hence while the
main station is in the corn belt, the
main portion of the state lies out
side of it. Fortunately, where clover
ends alfalfa begins and at Brookings
as at Lincoln and Manhattan. you are
at the meeting point of clover and
alfalfa, where either of them will grow
but where clover does not succeed
quite as well as farther east and
alfalfa meets with difficulties that are
not met with farther west. Neither
the cowpea nor the soy bean seems