The Charles Mix new era. (Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D.) 1???-1911, 1910-08-05
DOANE ROBINSON STATE STAT
iSTIClAN GIVES ESTIMATE
ON CROP YIELDS
SHORTAGE Is INEVITABLE
While Preliminary Figures Show the
Grain Yields Below Average
Flax Corn and Alfalfa
are Doing Fine

P1erre-Last year South Dakota
produced Al, 000, 900 bushels of wheat,
sc, oO0, 900 of corn, 1000 900 of oats
and 20, 000, 900 of barley, a total of 49,
0G0, 900 bushels of the standard crops.
A rough preliminary estimate at this
time indicates that this year we will
get $4,000, 900 of wheat, &c. 600, 900 OF
corn, 20, 000, 900 of oats and 10, 00O, 900
of barley, a total of 1873, 600, 900, or a
loss of SO, 000, 900 bushels in the total
crop. Last year we cured $3.50, 900
tons of hay. We can scarcely get half
so much this year.
Still conditions r not nearly SO
discouraging as these figures would
indicate. Last year we harvested g.
900, 900 bushels of fax and the present
indications are for IN increased yield
this year. Corn is holding well up,
and if the stand had been as good
the yield would have been as great.
Chiefly We depend upon corn to make
our live stock product. Last year we
sold SEQ, 000, 900 worth of live stock,
and live stock products, and will do
better because of better prices this
year.
The shortage in the hay crop will
not be so disastrous to the live stock
interest as would appear for every
where farms are f%ortifying against
1t by sowing forage crops, rape, millet,
and fodder corn. Late and copiOus
rains are giving these crops a fine
start, and they will supply pastuIage
and slower to make up for a great
deal of the hay loss. There is a great
deal of old hay being carried over,
and then we have never saved nearly
so much of the hay as we might In
years of real need.
But alfalfa is the stuff. A good
early crop was harvested and the
great rain Of June "a came just in
time to give the second growth an i'm
pulse, which the subsequent showers
have accelerated. A big second cut
ting is in sight and a third cutting is
probable. The regret is that the acre
age is not larger. There are, how-
ever, few farms in Western or Central
South Dakota that do not have a few
acres of alfalfa, and the spread Is be-
ing constantly increased. A farmer
near Fort Pierre has TIA acres In a
single field. He has just completed
the harvest of the first crop and finds
the second crop about ready upon the
portions first cut. l am firmly con-
WINGED that alfalfa will be the found
alton of a great and permanent agrl-
culture in the sub-humid regions of
South Dakota.
Prof. N. E. Hansen, the alfalfa ex-
pert, fears that a harder seed will be
necessary, and that the severity of
the Western winters will make the
varieties at present cultivated too
likely to winter kill to make the crop
dependable. In fact, the crop does
occasionally winter kill and the loss
from this cause is one element which
has prevented a large seeding, but I
do not know of any field which has
been entirely lost in any year, and
there are fields here which have been
constantly cropped for more than a
quarter of a century and are still
very thrifty. 1t is believed the Siber-
ian v~arities introduced from Russia
by Prof. Hansen will, however, with
stand n sort of winter which we
are likely to encounter. The danger
and loss from winter kill of the COM
mon varieties has been much overesti-
mated so far as this central and west
ern region is concerned, though in the
eastern portion of the state it does not
seem to fare so we'll.