The Charles Mix new era. (Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D.) 1???-1911, 1910-09-16
BROWN COUNTY BONANZA FAR
MER STATES HIS VIEWS
ON CONSERVATION
TREE PLANTING Is URGED
Thinks at Least Five Acres on Each
Quarter Section Should be in
Trees Along Roadways
and Land Lines

TNo~~ 80 oAiAoA6 NhS
interested and interesting visitors to
this city during the reception of Mr..
Roosevelt, was Mr.. A. w. Kruger Of
Groton, Brown county, a farmer AMI
a conservation enthusiast, who left
here for Minneapolis, being a dele
gate to the conservation congress.
Mr.. Kruger farms on a scale in
Brown county which reveals that all
the bonanza farmers of the northwest
have not yet gone out OF business.
His farm is larger than the principal
ity of some of the princes of Monte
negero, whose names are in the blue
book and who strut about covered
with gold braid and jewels and really
feel that their land which would be
little more than a %barnyard for the
Kruger farm, is Of some consequence
in the great sum OF things.
Interviewed by a Sioux Falls news
paper man, he gave his views on o IL
.servation of moisture, tree planting,
ETC., which will be of interest to South
Dakotans.
"Of the $500 acres of land which l
own in Brown county, nearly every
acre of it is under cultivation said
Mr.. Kruger. There are 1900 acres
which were planted to wheat this year
and l will secure an average yield OF
II bushels to the acre of that cereal.
And it is all of the very best quality.
There we're 40 acres in barley and
the average yield was Is bushels to
the acre, while the oats, OF which l
had a good sized field, yielded about
80 bushels to the acre.
81 was very happily disappointed in
that crop, l can assure you, he 2ause
before the grain was cut the straw
looked thin and l felt that | would
not be able to gather much grain.
But the heads were well filled and
the result was SO cent more crop than
l expected.
"You will remember that the early
season had every indication of being
dry and that the crop would be short.
l think that l have solved the riddle,
which surrounds the yielding OF a
fair crop, after such poor indications
and that solution lies in the fact that
the ground froze up last fall, wet, very
wet, and that kept the moisture in
the ground all winter and until it was
needed by the seed and grain last
spring and her it was on hand to give
the grain q good start and to keer
the roots moistened when there was
no rain falling.
"The farmers east and north of us
will not fare as we'll as We have.
have farmed 1t in that country since
1880 and l have never seen SO little
rain as fell this year. And yet condi
lions were such that it was an excel
lent season for wheat and those con
ditions revealed another secret of ma
ture.
Mature conserved the moisture by
freezing up the ground when 1t wal
wet last fall.
And l made another interesting
discovery in connection with my farm
ing experience a few days ago. Fol
tw%enty-one years ] have raised whea
on that same farm and l find upor
consulting the records, that the aver
age yield per year for those twenty-on'
wears has been "A bushels to the acre
That fact shows you what the soil Il
in South Dakota. Shows how it viii
wear and what a lot of life and fer
tility there is in it.
81 am q delegate to the conserva
ton meeting at Minneapolis and
presume I may as we'll be lined VI
with the conservation cranks, first a
last, because / am that kind of
crank. | have been a delegate to sew
eral such conventions, of all sizes ar
kinds and l shall never fail to go, del
egate or not, if l am within travelling
distance of the affair, when 1t is held
"Of course l have my w theor,
of how best to conserve the mOistur
H. 4L;o oD,-,fry onH I would do If II
q very large measure by planting
trees. would plant five acres out Q
each quarter section to trees and
would put those trees along the road
and highways, on the west and mort
sides of the quarter, so that the
would catch the snow in winter time
That would leave 155 acres to be cul
tivated and l am of the fixed opln1o
that if there was five acres of tree
on each quarter section, to catch an
hold the snow and not permit 1t to b
blown off the fields and drift, in som
old roadway, or some gully, the re
naming 155 acres would raise NOR
grain than will the entire one hun
dred and six acres without that grow
) of FIVE acres. l speak from expel
l fence"
: At this point in the conversatiol
| G.. A. Pearley of ~Flandreau, anothe
bonanza farmer, who was listenln,
remarked that he had trees planted l
; lust the way Mr.. Kruger had sus
gested on his Moody county farm an
. that he has been told repeatedly thu
I that grove of trees adds at least $lO(
!, to the value of his farm.
= 81 also conserve the water In tn
: low places and holes on my farm
= continued Mr.. Kruger, "by p'antin
trees around those places and ALLOW
> ing those trees to stop and he TT
snow. I would have trees, homeho