The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1910-09-22
New Agricultural Campaign.

Ing come Une experimenting OpOlIniSlo
of the United States Department of
Agriculture with the idea that sea-
sons are relatively unlmportant.
Nature is bountiful, but the age when
she acted as fairy godmother to in
fant humanity disappeared with the
lost tribes of Israel and now the trea.-
ures must be looked for with the test |
tube and the experiment field. 1t is
not enough to plow and plant. There
ale ways of blowing and ways of plant
ing and the big returns follow the
best methods.
Pursuing this idea, the investiga
tors have discovered few Of the sim.
pie and practical methods and have
demonstrated that corn field which
produces twenty bushels to the acre
under ordinary methods will produce
twenty-five bushels with careful
selection of seed. BY improved meth
ods of preparing the soil the yield can
be increased to thirty b4shels. The
correct use of fertilizer or good crop
rotation system will add another five
bushels to the yield and scientific
method of cultivation will bring the
product up to forty bushels, thereby
accomplishing the important economic
feat Of placing two corn pones in the
oven where only one baked before.
They have made farming business
in which the profits can be forecast
with as much accuracy as in any
other business. 1t is their belief that
the season as an unavoidable factor in
farming is myth, just like the aged
idea that potatoes, having eyes, should
be planted i'm the dark of the moon so
that no light would lure them above
the ground to waste their strength on
luxuriant growth of valueless vines.
They have proven that the inherited
depravity of seed and soil and season
can be overcome and that the bad
season is condition of farming just
as much as it is q condition of the
weather
For years the Department Of Agri-
culture has aided in the maintenance
of experiment stations in every state,
but the new missionary campaign car
ries the instruction into the homes OF
the farmer themselves. The tests
and demonstrations are carried on,
not on government land, but on the
land of the farmer, and the work is
done 10y him, under the direction Of
the government agent.
The missionary campaign centers in
the south central states, where 1t is
most needed, and in a hundred COM
munities miracle of transformation
has been worked, not only in the pro-
duction Of better crops, but in the
optimism that follows. The move
ment in each community usually starts
with school house meeting cham
pioned by the commercial club or the
progressive business men from the
county seat. The Importance of bet
ter farming methods is discussed and
the plan for the establishment Of eX-
pertinent tracts to be cultivated under
the supervision of government ex-
perts is told Of. The farmers are
urged to devote from one to five acres
for this purpose. They are asked to
take nothing for granted, to believe
nothing that they do not see and to
follow only the methods which through
their own work on the experimental
tracts are visited by the department
agent who gives expert instruction as
to the cultivation of the crops.
Last season Dan b. Ross, of Garth
age, Texas, one of the reform farmers,
made 916 bushels of corn on fifteen
acres Of land and seventeen bales of
cotton on the same area, his years
work giving him a profit Of $4,000.
Yet he did not have any rain from
May II to August ia drouth period
supposed to make successful crop
impossible. His neighbors' crops were
so small that one hundred of them
had to secure their seed from him.
From Reforming the Bad Seasons" {"
by Carl Crow in Technical World
Magazine for october.