The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-06-18

rotate with other crops, cultivation and
pasture.
Soil Is Not Exhausted.
] Prof Bolley says that he can not
believe that soil exhaustion is the
cause Of the rapid decline in the acre
yields over the state. That 1t took
thousands of years to prepare this soil
for the husbandman as it is today
That the richest mineral matter that
make up the soils were put here by
glacial action and that after that the
grasses have been gowing and dying
on the surface of the ground for untold
thousands Of years, and that the soils
are exhausted or even appreciably de-
Ipleted in few years, he does not be-
lieve.
Yet he knows that there is something
4 wrong but he does not believe nor will
he admit that it is so serious as many
claim, as to be soil exhaustion.
/ Is No Plant Sickness.
The real trouble comes from the
plants being sick from some disease
which is caused by infection from
spores carried by poor seed in the air
or by water, and in many cases the
fields are so impregnated with them
that it is impossible for the grains
from these fields 10 produce healthy
plants when used for seed and, there
by, causing serious loss, or in many
cases total failure of the crops on the
lands thus impregnated.
Once these spores or germs get
into the soils in any way, or where
diseased or weakened. seed is used,
there is only one treatment that will
give relief. That is the rotation of
crops and treatment of the seed before
sowing.
Cultivation Rotation, Good Seed.
When fields are once full of the
germs of disease from poor or impure
seed, from blowing from one field to
another or the passing of straw or ma
nure made from stray of infected lands,
there is only one thing to do and that
is to get rid Of the disease and to stay
rid Of 1t just the same as you must
first rid your community of such dis
eases as smallpox and scarlet fever if
you would have the people well.
Now how are the farmers to get rid
OF this trouble is the question, for
it is a trouble that is now costing
North Dakota farmers losses aggre-
eating millions of dollars annually in
the way of diseased grain yields, and
If not checked means the destruction
of all wheat and fax crops in the state
sooner or later and the decrease in
yield Immediately to the point where
farming cannot be carried on except at
a loss.
But Prof. Bolley says that he is will
ing to stake his reputation as a scien-
fist upon the statement that there is
a remedy for this trouble, and one that
is not over difficult to apply and that if
1ntelligently applied will, in the main,
rid the state of the impending calamity.
His remedy is rotation of crops Gull
tivaton OF crops like corn and potatoes,
thereby airing the soils and with aid of
air and sunlight, killing the germs and
the treatment of good seed and the abb
solute refusal to allow diseased seeds
or poor, weak seed of any kind to be
planted.
But one man In a neighborhood can
not do the work alone. 1t is by united
effort and cooperation that the fields
must be cleared and kept clean. One
case of smallpox would infest a whole
. community. So can one foul field.
In fields not yet affected he would
do everything possible to prevent in
lection. This prevention applies espe-
cially to new lands vet to be broken
and the absolute refusal to use seed
that has in any way become infected
or that is diseased by inheritance or
that is any way weak in vitality Then
treat everything with the proper So
luton before sowing,
There are other remedies and the
plant breeding must and will do much
but the real remedy is in the farmers
own hands and it is for him to save
for himself and his children the great
est inheritance that the world has ever
known Or by his own Observation-Disclosures
to pay the penalty that violated nature
always exacts
Better Farming Important.
n The importance of better farming
methods was admirably illustrated in
4 A1N.N