The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1909-09-15
WHAT MAKES CHEAP LANDS?

ductiveness and markets, including
transportation 2, Environment, in
Guiding schools, churches, etc.; 3,
Healthfulness. One may be inclined
to change the order, placing healthful-
ness first, but we are treating the
land question just now.
Productiveness doesn't necessarily
mean bushels or tons-it means much
more. 1t means value in the market
and facility for getting it therein
other words, net value in the market.
TO illustrate: On the same day wheat
was worth 80 cents in Calgary and
S1.14 in Minneapolis; barley 80 cents
in Calgary. go cents in Minneapolis;
oats 25 cents in Calgary, Sc cents in
Minneapolis: flax $1.00 in Calgary,
S1.1S in Minneapolis. A bushel of each
was worth $235 in Calgary, $3.50 in
Minneapolis; a bushel of each was
worth over 60 per cent more in MIN
neapolis than in Calgary.
A bushel of vegetables or fruit may
lose half its value because OF distance
from market-worse still, II PERISH
able, it's whole value may vanish, leaV-
ing a freight bill as the only evidence
of the transaction.
Productiveness, when reduced to It's
final analysis, goes still farther than
net value in the market. 1t involves
the exchange value in supplies, and In
this feature distance from central mar
kets has an almost universally direct
bearing in that, as crops bring less,
supplies cost more.
Productiveness has another element,
that of certainty in maturity ana OF
demand in the market-1n other
words, the speculative feature. An IL
lustration: A crop of sugar beets
ranging at from $50 to $50 per acre
raised on a previously made contract
may be preferable to tobacco crop
that ranges generally from $500 to
5000 per acre, the market for which
is unsteady A clover seed crop fol-
lowing an ample harvest of hay is
pickup" that, if good, means $50 or
upward and, if not good, means prac-
tically no loss.
Nor does average productiveness in
bushels or tons of all crops necessa-
rily settle the question, of productive
ness. No prospective dairyman or
stock-raiser would compare clover
with timothy, ton for ton, clover being
worth twice as much as timothy as
stock food. Again, the same crop,
clover for instance, may, and probaDly
does, contain more nutrient content
when grown in it's natural home than
where it is produced with difficulty.
Corn is another crop wherein bush
els of grain doesn't necessarily meas
ure tie value The silo has materially
changed the situation, and 1t is now
an open question whether the smaller
crop farther north may not have
food value equal to that grown any
where.
Productiveness is also modified by
the effect cropping has upon the land.
Those crops sold in the market usu-
ally consume more fertility than those
that are fed to stock-a double reason
in favor of dairying and stockralslng.
The westward movement OF exclu-
sive grain farming is too conspicuous
to leave necessity for a technical dis
cussion. Inversely conspicuous is the
fact that dairying and stockra1s1ng
conserves and builds up productivity
and maintains continued increasing
value in land. The maintenance or
fertility is as essential an element in
production as the growth of crops.
The cost of fertilizer in many sections
is very heavy-not so to the dairyman
and stockraiser.
Glover is a wonderful upbuilder of
the fertility in soil. 1t adds nitrogen,
and plowed under adds humus for
crops to follow in proper rotation.
With this help, the dairyman can use
a portion of his barnyard fertilizer for
special crops that require large
amounts of fertilizer.
2. Environments are looked upon