Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1911-10-05
TELLS HOW LAND VALUES RISE

ed agricultural country in the world.
Denmark has an area about twice
that of the state of Massachusetts,
and they have 50 agricultural coll
eges and high schools. The science
of farming is taught as you would
teach your children the alphabet, and
the three RS. Now let us see what
happens.
Two years ago Denmark raised E.
nough agricultural products to feed
her own people and exported to 9TH
er countries So an acre from every
acre of farm land in the kingdom.
Now you don't raise SO an acre on
every acre of farm land in North Da-
kota or even in Iowa. In Iowa
think the total value was $11.03, but
after feeding all of the people of
Denmark they export 50 an acre
Their average wheat yield on land
which you would not cultivate in its
original condition is SO to As bush
els to the acre. Holland Is "a, Great
Britain or England is 33, and 100
years ago it was IA or Is, but they
took up intelligent farming.
Now we hear little about dry
farming and I want to say to you
that IL all the farming is to be dry
farming it will be awfully dry for
the fellow who is doing it. There is
no substitute for good farming and
wet farming or dry farming will fail
If it is not good and inteulgent farm
ing.
Suppose the farmer wants to raise
corn, or wheat or oats or barley, and
he wants to test the seed. Let him
take. hundred average kernels Of
his seed and put them in little box
and moisten the soil and let him
count the number of seeds that pro-
pogate we'll, and the number that
have nourished and the number that
don't grow at all. He knows what
percentage of his seed is good. The
nexE thing he has to do is to get
down ), and prepare his seed bins
There fs where most of the farmers,
fail. Many of them are in hurry
They have got some visiting to do in
the fall, and it rains, and they could
not thresh, and there are thousand
and one reasons why their fall plow-
ing was delayed. They could not
plow because the shocks were on the
ground. They could not plow and
the shocks sat there until they be-
gan to sprout and the value of their
grain was reduced two or three times.
must say that the FARMER has my
sympathy because of the difficulty
he has in getting good agricultural
help to work with him on the farm.
It is hard to get. He takes a hobo
and trys to find them on the freight
trains, hanging onto the rods or
climbing up on top of the cars, and
he is afraid to take them into his
house for fear they will rob him.
labor is hard to get and
for that reason the farmer must give
his attention to crops that take the
least labor. But let us 60 back to
the plowing. Now horses run to
the straw stacks all winter and in
the spring they haven't had much
grain, and two or three weeks be-
fore he wants to commence plowing
he begins to feed them little grain,
but he has run short and sold a
little more than he ought to have
sold. And when he comes to put his
plow down six or eight inches his
team is not strong enough to pull 1T.
Three or four horses won't haul his
1 4-ineh gang plow six or eight inches
deep consequently he plows from two
to three inches deep, and he can't
get good crop. You can't get two
quarts out of pint, and he can't
get good crop where he don't culti-
vate the soil. A good farmer will
plow his land as it should be plowed,
not too deep; he doesn't want to turn
up gravel. II he has got land he
wants to plow it and cultivate it,
and then put his grain in and when
he has done that; when he has Sc
lected his seed and prepared his soil,
and made the cultivation of the soil
q matter of first importance. he has
done all that the agricultural college
professor could ever do. Depend up
on it, he has done everything that
any body can do.
And with proper cultivation the
land should be better. In England
100 years ago wheat yielded but IA
or, Is bushels to the acre and the
people were leaving the land. The
was largely owned by large
holders, people who owned half q
and 1t was making them land
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