Judith Gap journal. [volume] (Judith Gap, Mont.) 1908-19??, 1910-10-14
SHEPHERDS PAIE} ON
DRY FARM CROPS
Continued from First Page.)

which is likely to cause an early mi.
grafton. Single cropping brings the
bonanza farm and scant settlement
group of hired help and distant
neighbors. The small farm which ia
farm home, brings the productive.
ness and prosperity, which every COM
munity wants and better still causes
permanency in each.
Mixed farming gives a longer tenure
OF service for the hired help and TINS
enables the farmer to secure a better
class of hired men and women. II
ribs the community of the floating.
careless hobo help and brings in their
stead class of men who think while
they work and that alone will double
their efficiency in producing results in
a term of years.
The milk cows with their monthly
creamery check constitute an excel.
lent means of keeping the grocery bill
paid up, a bunch Of hogs which have
run in the alfalfa field and largely
wintered on the alfalfa leaves gather
ed up where the hay thrown from the
NOW shattered them off bring a nice
sum of money on the market in these
days, besides providing the family
table with pork and lard. A flock of
sheep will CLEAN a lot of their living
on dry land farm and there is some
thing in the old proverb which saws:
"a sheep never dies in debt to it's
owner" and it is "the animal with the
golden hoff.''
Raise Few Colts.
1t is far better to carry All extra
mare or two and to raise a few colts
so that the older horses can be sold
Oft before they begin to run down i'm
value and to have strong young beasts
in the harness than to be paying out
money for a new team occasionally
and to he working crippled old stock
or selling them for pittiance.
a good active flock Of business hens
will fit in with any dry land farmers
conditions and will add greatly to the
balance OIL the rig Int side of his ledger.
it he will use judgment in handling
them.
Cropping Systems.
Whether a field shall be IN small
grain each alternate year, two years
in five or three years in five cannot he
told without knowing the farm, the
family residing on the farm, and the
market conditions. Following are
some dry farm cropping systems Which
are giving good results i'll North Da-
kOta:
Corn; corn: fife wheat.
Fife wheat; flax; barley Glover with
barley-manured).
Peas and Oats-manured: durum
wheat (clover); clover.
Durum wheat; clover; flax.
Oats; oats and barley; corn.
In all cases it is understood, of
course, that where any system of crop.
ping is adopted, it must be subject to
change, as the failure of Il grass crop
to make catch or a winter grain to
come through right, in a given season
necessitates change in the system of
cropping.
Few farms are run to the best adj
vantage which do not have two or more
systems of cropping on them. The
small fields near the buildings can be
cropped to much better advantage by
having them planned to suit the live
stock needs than upon basis of pro-
ducing largely marketable crops.
On the other hand it is wasteful to
put them into a system so permanent
as not to take advantage of the heavier
supply OF manure and humus which
the live stock add to the soil so regu-
larly. The potato patch should he
changed about through some minor
rotation for example, so that scabby
potatoes will not be the rule and SO
that the potato crop can have advant-
age OF the manure where pasture
crops have been fed off and where
leguminous crops have been grown.
Grass and forage crops are in my
opinion prime necessities. \ system
should be devised which will produce
maximum crops when the field is sown
as the fixed charges against field are
very little increased for heavy crop
over those for an average crop and
the net returns may be doubled.