The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1910-09-22
FARM N
ITS CAPACITY
Are Your Methods Producing All
That They Should

decreased nIty yer cent, says JdiileS
J. Hill, and | know he is right.
Twenty eight bushels Of corn to the
acre IN the United States in 1908!
Why, n ear to the hill at the rate
OF 100 ears to the bushel is thirty
seven bushels an acre and two ears
to the hill, sixty-four bushels. A
man should raise three ears to the
hill. That would give him 100
bushels to the acre. But just think,
corn in the United States last year
did not average three fourths of an
ear to the hill. What is the matter?
Too many men checking on the
bank putting nothing back. Two
many men trying to raise two crops
at the same on one piece of land-a
crop of weeds and a crop of grain.
Too many men are taking it easy
when they ought to be blowing
corn. A boy once asked his father
where EASY street was. my son."
he said, cit is a street down at the
end of Hard Work avenue and you
cannot get it by going any other
way" Poor cultivation, poor seed,
poor soil, accounts for so light a
yield, and yet corn is our most vaiu-
able CROP cannot but think that
with the desire for improvement
that exists to-day, that it will not be
many year until by the aid of good
seed good soil and good work we
will at least double the amount
raised on the same area of land. |
think that it would pay the states
and counties to offer prizes for the
best piece of corn, to be not less in
any case than forty acres Some
Nebraska boys prodoced last year
over 200 bushels to the acre, so we
can see what is possible.
But" says the farmer, how
shall | make those deposits you are
talking so much about?' There are
numerous answers to this question.
It can be done through alfalfa, or
clover or peas. But | think the
cheapest and surest IS to do it
through stock. What kind of stock,
you ask? That is easy. Good stock.
If crops are fed to poor stock it is
one-half lost. | Knew man who
lately sold his farm of 500 acres for
$50, 600. big price" says one.
"Oh no." says a neighbor, that
farm is very rick. They have always
kept lots of stock. For the last
twenty years they have never had
less than 125 head of pure bred
cattle and it takes one team all the
time to keep the manure drawn out.
Why, sir their corn last year husked
eighty bushels to the acre. The
COW and the manure made the
corn.
Said another heighbor. Their
pasture will furnish feed for twice
as many cattle as the average past
ure." They have top-dressed it so
often that it will keep a cow to the
acre and then it is not eaten down
close. Such a farm will always sell
for $25 to $40 an acre more than one
that has been robbed. | saw my
fathers old farm cropped and | am
ashamed to say | helped to do it
until twenty-five to thirty bushels of
corn Was the maximum yield. sold
it in that condition in 1871 for S35
and passing by there years after
wards | saw a field of corn that
would husk at least eighty bushels
the acre, the land producing SEEM
ingly better than 1T did fifty years
ago. What did it? found a Swede
there milking eighty cows. selling
nothing but the cream, putting
everything else back into the land.
| asked him the value of the land
now and he said he could sell for
$3.50 an acre. This shows what
stock will do for land. That Swede,
they told me, first rented the land.
Now he owns it. He is growing
richer every day and so is his farm.
But where you find one farm that
has. been 50 ineelligently- treated
you will find ten that have raised
the danger signal. Ten that are
not producing shisty-bnshelste-ate.
acre because the modus operandi
has been all checks and no deposit
Farm and Real Estate Journal.