The Mobridge news. [volume] (Mobridge, Walworth Co., S.D.) 190?-1917, 1910-09-02
CAMPBELL OF BROWN COUNTY
THE FATHER OF SCIENTIFIC
FILLING OF THE SOIL
POTATO BUG And DROUGHT
Professor Perisho of vermiliion Says
the Vines Were Dead at Critical
Time and Next Year Will
be a Potato Year

Mlnnehaha county teachers institute
Thursday, discussed some matters OF
particular Importance to the people OF
South Dakota.
He explained fully and clearly the
aims and objects Of the law Of the
initiative and referendum and the law
in this state and gave several illus
trations from the experiences of other
states with these laws, which shed
light upon each and every feature of
them.
Prof. Perisho then rapidly analysed
the different propositions which are
before the people of South Dakota, in
the approaching campaign and cleo
ton and called attention to the seven
foot ballot which the people of this
state will be expected to vote at that
election.
He stated that seven-eighths Of the
printing on the ballot referred to the
state military law and he frankly
confessed that he does not understand
that law, what it mea or what IL Is
intended to do, il it is enacted into
law by the votes Of the people at the
next election.
At 1880 o'clock Prof. Perisho talk
ed on dry farming and he stated that
the father of dry farming In the
United States is a former South Da-
kotan, and that the place Of birth Of
the idea and the theory and the place
of the first test of dry farming Is
South Dakota.
"A mar named Campbell, who lived
at one time in Brown county, this
state, in the dryest years in the his
tory Of this northwest, 1898 and 1894,
proved by experiments in those two
years, that good crops can be raised
by dry farming, as he called It," said
Prof. Perisho.
Campbell proved that five tons Of
hay can be moved from n acre OF
ground, with only one foot or twelve
inches of moisture in twelve months
on any soil, il we but know how to
take care Of that moisture and pre-
serve it. Campbell gathered ia BUSH
els of potatoes from an acre of ground,
in the same year that his father, who
lived on the next farm, got no pota-
toes whatever.
"Campbell's work was SO important
and so enlightening to the agricultur-
al experts Of the state of Nebraska
that he was employed by that state to
go to an experimental farm for dry
farming near Hastings, Neb., to In
struct students in the science.
And so successfully did his theory
work out at that farm that the United
States government sent the best ex-
perts it had in the department OF agri-
culture, over which Tama Jim Wilson,
one Of the most successful farmers
Iowa ever had, presides, to study dry
farming under Campbell, a South Da-
kota man, whose neighbors in Brown
county, at one time believed to be a
crank and on the subject OF raising
crops without water, a very lunatic.
"Mr. Campbell is the father of the
dry farming movement In the arid re-
gions of this country. He has con-
WINGED the men who make a science OF
the cultivation of the earth, that his
theory is not only correct but that
any man can farm anywhere, accord
ing to it, and be successful"
He brands the potato bug as a fell
low william to the fly. His remarks
did not bear upon the work of the po-
tato bug as a conveyance for disease
germs, which perfidous reputation, he
has hung upon the house fly, so effect
lively that it will never rub off, but he
did tell how Mr.. Potato Bug breaks
into the potato market and keeps the
man of the house digging down in his
corduroys for the simoleons with
which to purchase spuds, that the
healthy South Dakota boy and girl
may receive the nourishment which
they require in order to get to school
and study hard.
"This potato bug thing is a curse to
this country when he has an oppor-
tunity to be anything at all. He de-
posits his eggs on the leaf of the po-
tato plant, the egg is Matched by the
warmth of the sun, the little bug
drops OFF the leaf and burrows into
the ground to come forth later and eat
up the potato vines.
"But you will find potato bugs few
next year | think" said Prof. Peri
sho," because the bug which was
Matched this year found very little to
eat when he came out OF the ground
on a ~foraging expedition, after he
had been Matched and burrowed into
the earth.
"You remember that potato vines
died early this year, for lack Of mois-
ture. Well, those vines died beteen
the time the little bugs dropped of
the potato and burrowed into the
earth and the time OF their coming
forth again and when they did come
out OF the ground they found no vines
upon which to perch and I'LL their lit
tie stomachs. Therefore they all, or
nearly all of them starved to death
and will not be around next summer
Dead potato bugs lay no eggs and
I think there will be a wonderful po-
tato crop in South Dakota next year"
Scotland-Adam Mehrer of Memo.
Sronned dead here Monday morning