The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-12-28

1
of fertility, prevention of smuts, and
with studying the difficulties sur
rounding the possible prevention of the
various types of rust. They have
| hardly suspected that the wheat crop,
oat crop or barley crop and other OF
the general farm crops are subject to
persistent soil disease similar to those
| described for potatoes and that by
continuous cropping the soil becomes
contaminated by numerous types of
parasites which prey upon the roots
of the crop and make ii practically
| impossible after the first few years
cropping of our virgin prairie soils to
produce anything much above the
general average in yield. regardless OF
the natural artificial fertility Of the
soil. It is known for all Of the fax
growing regions that sometimes only
one crop can be grown, sometimes two
| or. three and sometimes FIVE, six or
ten, but eventually the crop deteri-
crates from year to year until 1t pass
| es out of existence in a given region
as a farming crop. 1t is further noted
| by most careful observers that what
! in similar regions follows a similar
course Of deterioration. At first the
seed is plump, sixty to seventy-two
| pound stuff. In few years it rapidly
! lessons In weight per bushel and in
! bushels per acre until the average
4 yield for the three northwestern
spring wheat growing states in the
short time that they have been crop
| ped now approximate twelve to fifteen
bushels per acre per year. 1t has been
an easy matter to suspect that persist
ent croppin9So the same crop has re-
duced the fS#4ility to this extent, but
| ii is hardly a reasonable conclusion.
| The writer has seen extensive areas
of the prairie soils Of the northwest
seeded to fax with such quality of
seed that there could be no second
crop raised on the land. One could
hardly affirm that the first crop re-
moved the essential fertility for the
growth Of fax. Indeed we know that
we only need to spread fresh uncom-
posted barnyard manure, made of old
fax straw to completely unfit the best
virgin prairie soils for the growth OF
| that crop, for, by such process, the
soils become at once thoroughly in
| fected with persistent fax root de-
stroying organisms, which would 9th
erwise only reach a similar intensity
of infection after a number of years OF
increasing infection through the use Of
disease bearing seed.
Positive Proof
North Dakota contains many sec
tions of school lands which have lain
idle as prairie sod during the twenty
to forty wears in which the surround
ing lands have been cropped to wheat.
The quality of this native prairie SOD
lands cannot be called into question.
| A section may be the best In the
neighborhood, and yet when such
section is broken up, even though
worked by the best improved ma
chinery and given the very best cul-
| ture conditions for the growth of
wheat. the yield of such section is
not now expected by our farmers to be
greatly above the average for the old
| lands Immediately adjacent. In a
normal year, wheat upon such fields
no longer weighs sixty pounds to the
busheI nor is 1t a reasonable expecta-
| ton that il shall be twenty-five to
forty bushels per acre. 1t is very like
! IN not to out yield the fields infme-
diateIv adjacent, which have been in
crop for thirty or forty years The
quality of it's seed is even more liable
| IN he shrivelled and of light weight
ner bushel. My Investigations extend
| ing over a period of nine or ten years
! have gradually convinced me tha@9he
older wheat areas of the northwest
are in exactly the same status as the
L. aAC ngOl ma
| properly be spoken OF as wheat-slek
in the same sense as we have pre-
viously spoken of the old flax lands
as fax tired or flax-sick. These lands
! I'm neither case are exhausted for the
particular crop mentioned. There is
an abundance Of fertility there for the
production of many crops Of greater
WELD than has heretofore been OBJ
| tanned. but the soils are not in a
sanitary condition. The chemist and
the agriculturist were right when they
| said constant cropping had brought
about deterioration of the grain, but
4 the chief explanation rests not in the
loss of nitrogen and of other kinds of
| chemical matters. Fields that have
been cropped only two or three years
show the same deterioration in yield
and the same deteriorated quality of
grain. and plump grain cannot be OBJ
tanned by the addition of barnyard
manures to such soils. What has
! happened is that constant cropping
has carried to the soil the various
types of parasites which the wheat
! crop and flax crop are heir to. I do
not question that 1t is possible by con-
| tinuous cropping to so reduce soil
with reference to the same particular
chemical element as to materially in
terfere with the yield Of a given crop
upon the soil. But / have reached the
conclusion that there has not been
sufficient continuous cropping done in
North Dakota or any Of the north
western states to account for the dis
appearance of the fax crop or for the
marked deterioration of the wheat and
other cereal crops, both in yield and
quality of grain
That proper crop rotation results In
increased yields and better quality OF
grain cannot be questioned. But the
processes involved in such crop ro-
tation are those which are most d.
rectly liable to tend to bring about
the publication of the soil after IL
has once become infected with disease
producing organisms. The processes OF
seed selection. crop rotation and OF
seeded formation, as usually describ-
ed, are requisite for proper crop de-
velopment, but in the presence of i'm
ternalIy diseased seed and disease in
fected soil, the crop cannot and does