Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1909-02-19

SAD ana SOrroW1ul experience, OeRIn
to farm instead Of mine the fertility
of their farms and sell 1t to him. 1t
will take years for him to finish this
work; but the final result is as GER
tain as the coming years. The inan-
cial and social salvation Of the neigh.
borhood is the maintenance Of fer
tility not on one farm or two, but on
every farm.
The great difficulty with the aver
age western farmer is that he has
i'm bibed the notion that the fertility
of his soil is practically unlimited.
The pioneer farmer On these fertile
prairie lands Of the west noticed that
even with the most rudimentary and
careless cultivation he grew great
crops. He was wont to remark that
he never knew a soil that would stand
as much wet weather and as much
dry weather, and that never had a
turned furrow showed more life. He
gloried In the rich, black dirt brought
up by the last turn of the post auger,
and felt that he was heir to the stored
fertility Of the ages. When after the
course Of fifteen or twenty years he
found that for some reason his land
was less productive, he concluded that
the seasons had changed, or perhaps
there was something wrong at Wash
ington and there was great need OF
political revolution, or listening to
the tales of his neighbors who had
moved west, he concluded that he
had taken the cream off this land and
might just as we'll, now that land was
cheap, move farther west and get a
virgin soil, and in the light OF his
past experience maintain its fertility
to the end.
! Before we emerged from the
pioneer stage, which in fact is a mere
matter of yesterday, this condition of
things was inevitable. 1t is only in
the last few years that farmers are
beginning to realize that 10 land is
of inexhaustible fertility. Complaints
have come to us during the last year
from almost every state in the mid
die west, ever from the states
of Minnesota and the Dakotas, stat
ing that their land was wearing out
and wanting to know what to do for
it. Even in these newer states men
are beginning to inquire about COM
mercial fertilizers, as though the in
discriminate purchase of commercial
fertilizers, v e if they had the means
to purchase them, would bring them
any efficient help.
| Farmers are now beginning to take
a broader view, and to compare the
fertility of the entire nation west Of
the Alleghenies with the condition at
the beginning OF the last century.
Then there was an unbrOken forest
from the crest of the Alleghenies to
Indiana, the timber on many single
sections of which at present prices
would be worth almost a kings ran
som. This has been practically
wasted or sold for a song. With the
extravaganza of youth, whether IN
men or nations, we have wasted this
magnificent heritage both of hard
wood lands in the middle states and
of soft woods in Minnesota, Wiscon-
sin, and Michigan.
These lands when cleared were for
the most part exceedingly fertile, Sec
ond only to the rich prairie lands Of
Illinois, Iowa, eastern Kansas and
Nebraska. From all these lands.
which have been cleared with infinite
toll and pains by the original owners,
there is heard a cry for commercial
fertilizers. We hear the same cry
from Illinois and Missouri, and in
scattered localities in all the states of
the west.
This means that the nineteenth
century farmer was a miner and not
a farmer; that he was in the position
of the son of the rich man. born with
a silver spoon in his mouth, which
he used industriously to dissipate his
inheritance. Possibly it was best in
the long run that farmers should
throw away this heritage and thus be
obliged to farm instead of harvest this
stored fertility of the ages. But
whether best or not, it has largely
been done: and now we are face to
face with the problem of restoring this
fertility and farming on scientific
principles, or if our readers dislike
that word scientific, on principles in
volving the application of good. COM.
mon sense.