Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1909-10-29

Station reports a yield of forty-tWo
bushels of wheat per acre, ninety
bushels of oats and three hundred
fifty bushels of potatoes; that the
Beach Demonstration Farm has CIV
en- a yield of better than thirty BUSH
els for more than one season; and
that a steam threshing rig was un-
loaded at Medora, in the heart OF
our Band Lands and dry lands coun-
try, recently, should be evidence
enough that dry land farming Is
making encouraging progress in
North Dakota. The Edgeley and Will
listOn Sub-stations representing other
districts of dry land activities in
North Dakota which have also made
consistent yields and have shown the
possibilities of their districts to be
far beyond that which had been as
signed to them before these investi-
cations were started
Our twenty-one demonstration
farms, a great majority of which are
in the dry land district, indicate that
good dry land farming methods are
increasing the per acre yield from
fifty to one hundred per cent as you
will be informed through another
paper presented at this congress.
This indicates the great need OF ed
ucation by demonstration to the
farmers living in the dry land dis
tricts.
Land values are always features
which give indication of progress in
a district of country. In a large Sec
ton of North Dakota where home
steads were plentiful in 1904 and 1905
many of which have not been prov
ed up and the patents secured are
selling from $25 to s35 per acre. 1t
seems to me that there could be no
stronger evidence OF the most mark
ed progress in the part of dry land
development in our state. Another
evidence is the extension of railroad
lines, branch or feeding lines, and
numerous spur lines over the wes-
tern map of North Dakota. Railroad
officials look over a country very
carefully and diagnose its possibill-
ties for production and the support
of civilization, in dense form, very
thoroughly before they put in the
heavy expense which the building OF
a railroad represents. That the
Great Northern, Northern Pacific,
500 Line and Milwaukee systems are
able to render good business judy
ment in all such cases the history of
the past is sufficient evidence.
Not only does the construction of
railway lines, the building up of
townsites, the erection of elevators,
stores, ETC., indicate that dry land
farming has made progress in our
state, but It. is the strongest posi-
BILE forecast OF even greater progress
and more rapid development for the
years which are to come.
Dry land farming has another ad-
vantage that is commonly overlook
ed, and that is the effect which it
has upon the half dry lands east of
it, and the super-dry land west of It..
I am satisfied that to the west OF
what we now list as the dry land
farming district, population will soon
engage in agriculture and be sue
cessful by increasing the farm unit
and following the same methods as
are laid down for the dry land ac-
tivities of the present with minor
amendments and revisions. Already
the more favored neighbors of the
dry land farmers on the east are
copying the methods with excellent
results in the way of additional re-
turns from their land. This is a
feature which, I, at least, had not
thought of, before I saw it actually
happening. In this way, believe,
that dry land farming will mean
much more to North Dakota than
any of US have anticipated.
The spreading into the super-dry
districts will mean more farm homes
and one Of our prominent statesmen
recently said: "The farm home is the
hope of the nation. The history of
our great men has been the farm,
the academy, and fame
Dry land farming methods have
made our North Dakota farmers
more conservative. They do not go
in debt so much as our humid land
i farmers, and in consequence do not
have the burden of heavy interests
to pay in the adverse season which
come in all farming enterprises wher.
. ever they are located.
Dry land farming produces ex-
IRENE quality in most farm products.
The hay from a dry land district
ia rfur1a11v p1rrod or, g.. r~roor no1o~