The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-04-09
SIX MILLION DOLLARS FARM TAX.

| Minnesota School OF Agriculture, las
week, Mr.. James j. Hill told OF
farmer who had gone from Minnesota
back to Connecticut, and had bough
one of the many ornout farms there
He had paid three dollars an acre 10
lit, for, as n farm, it was non -produc
tive and practically worthless. H'
had put dairy cattle upon it, however
and in three years had so enriched thu
soil with the barnyard manure thai
he sold the farm for $50 an acre. The
man then acquired five other run dowr
farms and an automobile with which
he travels from farm to farm, man
aging his five dairies, for by means
of his daries he will transform S;
land into $50 land.
There is no magic in that transfer
nation, though the story sounds like
the dream of an alchemist or a vision
of Aladdin's lamp.
!. A well conducted dairy will pro
duce a clear profit above cost of feed
of $25 to $50 a COW, besides leaving
upon the farm manure worth $50 q
COW every year. A farm of 100 acres
can produce feed enough for 100 COWS
and that number of cows would give
fertility to the soil which alone would
add $4,000 to $4,000 a year to the
value of the farm, besides giving il
COW, or $4,000 to $4,000 a year.
Diaries do not do that in Mime
sofa. No, we are speaking of what
diaries can do, not what our miserable
dairying in Minnesota is doing.
Our cows are giving from 100 to
$50 pounds of butterfat a year-witf
an average of l60 pounds per COW
But it is the lO0-pound cows, the
paupers of our diaries, which are drag
ging down our average.
Minnesota has no reason to be proud
IF her dairying, yet no state has greater
tural advantages, no state has bet
ir dairy guidance of scientists than
has this. The dairy school of Mime
sofa is under the charge of a man
without superior in the world in his
special science. Professor T. L.
Hacker has a high standing amongst
the foremost dairy scientists, and not
only in scientific research work, but
in practical knowledge of handling
cows. He is most ably assisted by
Professor f. X. Slater, dairy editor
of this paper, who for four years mas
been state dairy commissioner. The
dairy school is turning out creamery
men and dairymen of superior train
ing, and these men scatter to all
parts of the state, yet their influence
and guidance is too little appreciated
by the mass of our farmers.
Minnesota! "The great bread and
butter state!" Behold her wheat
yield--less tnan the average per acre
of the United States, much less than
the average per acre of any state
adjoining her, east, west, south, or
even north in Canada.
Behold her dairies with yield of
100 pounds of butterfat a year, or
only half what is demanded by any
intelligent, trained dairyman. Behold
her cows-too often scrubs, fed
wastefully, ignorantly and ineffectu-
ing nearly 1900 pounds of fat year.
Not many, but some.
Minnesota! We are proud of the
state 'where every prospect pleases
and only the farming is vile"
We want to say complimentary
things about our state. It is not
"your" state, nor CHS state, nor
"their" state it is and always will
be, we hope, so long as we live, "our
state" and we are as proud of her
inherent possibilities as we are
ashamed of her present development in
agricultural knowledge and skill.
What is the cause of this lack of
progress? We can not account for it..
1t is inexcusable and stupid to farm
as we are doing-to rob the soil, to
feed scrub stock, to feed unbalanced
rations in the haphazard wasteful way
we must be doing, to produce the
shameful results-l60 pounds of but
terfat per COW! And our fields yield
ing less than thirteen bushels of
wheat per acre, and only seventy five
bushels of potatoes!
Mr.. Hill, in his address compared
Minnesota yields not with the yields
of the best states, not with the yields
of our next door neighbors but with
the average yields of the whole United
States, and showed that the agricul-
tural ignorance and slipshod methods
of Minnesota farmers are costing them
six million dollars annually, and he
well stated that if anyone should pro-
pose a special tax of $6,000,000 a year
to be assessed against Minnesota farm
ers, it would arouse intense and vio-
lent opposition. Yet that is exactly
what this kind of farming amounts
to. His figures are taken from gov
eminent statistics and are incontro-
vertible.
A century ago England averaged
only what Minnesota is now averag-
ing England then fortified her farm
ing brains, and now she averages
thirty-two bushels of wheat, as com