Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1909-05-06
FARMERS GET OUT OF RUT
Prof. Shaw Says Dakotans Heed
Warning Against Abuse of
Land.
BY PROF. THOMAS SHAW.

BY PROF. THOMAS SHAW.
The change that is coming to agri-
culture in the Dakotas is easily dis
cernible to those who understand it's
indications. Nowhere are the evil
dences of this change more apparent
than at the various farmers Institutes
held IN the state during recent
months. The attendance at these has
been very large. At the seventy-two
Institutes held in the past winter
there were in attendance not fewer
than $4,000. This number includes
the count of all the sessions, which
means that some of these are dupli-
Gates. That, however, is the method
adopted everywhere in estimating the
attendance
Until quite recently the farmers
wanted to know only about methods
pertaining to the growing Of grain,
and more particularly in the lines of
handling the soil and destroying
weeds. Now they want to hear about
the growing of grasses and clovers
and of dairy and other kinds of live
stock. Slowly, but surely, they are
opening their eyes to the truth that
the soil is gradually becoming eX-
hausted. This fact they would have
Indignantly repudiated few years
ago. They then claimed that their
soil would never wear out, but that it
would go on producing indefinitely
without any diminution in the grain
yields.
The yields of recent years are dis
polling this illusion. The average of
wheat production per acre is down to
about twelve bushels per acre, not
much more than half what it was
when the virgin soils Of the prairie
were first broken with the plow The
farmers. find that even when they
summer fallow their land they fail to
get the old-time yields. They get the
straw but not the grain. They find,
moreover, that the quality of the
grain is depreciating, so that the pro-
portion of No. 1 hard that is now
grown is a continuously receding guam
tity
Farmers Heed Warning.
These cold and hard facts are
bringing the farmers to their senses.
They have seen the handwriting on
the wall which has condemned the
old-time practices of tillage. They
realize that If they and their children
are to remain in Dakota they must in
troduce some notifications in their
methods of farming. What shall those
notifications be? That is what the
farmers want to know.
One of the first of these is modifi-
cation in the rotation of the crops
grown and such modification as will
include the growing Of grasses and
clovers. In past years the rotation
consisted in a succession Of grain
crops. For instance, the growing Of
wheat would be followed by flax, and
fax by barley, and barley by oats,
coming back to wheat again with an
occasional summer following of the
land to clean it. Many of the farmers
imagined this meant rotation. Well, it
did in way; 1t was rotation by sue
cession, but it was lacking in the fun
damental element of true rotation.
that is in the introduction Of an occa-
sional grass or clover crop to renew
the humus supply of the land. The
grain crops mentioned all drew upon
the fertility of the soil and so much
the same way. There was nothing,
therefore, in such a system to recu-
perate the soil.
Find Glover Will Grow.
1t Is now being ascertained that
clover will grow in many Of the coun-
ties in Dakota where it did not grow
in former years. Some Of the farm
ers had tried it and without success.
This accounts for the belief that was
almost universal few years ago, that
clover would never be successfully
grown in Dakota. The reasons we're
not known. Now 1t is being ascer-
tanned that the failures referred to
were the outcome of the absence of
bacteria in the soil proper t6niaNer
and essential to its successful dfEhg.
AS soon as these are introd ;lo-
yer can be successfully grown On
the experiment farm at Fargo, N. D.,
clover would not grow satisfactorily
years ago. Now the finest crops of
clover can be grown on any part of
that farm.
The outlook is promising for the sue
cessful growth of clover in every
county in Dakota But this success
will not be equal. In the eastern coun-
ties it will always grow more suGeess-
fully than in those west, and FOR the
reason mainly that in the former the
annual precipitation is greater Splen-
did crops of clover and of clover seed