The Dickinson press., 1911-12-23

doing the hest selection and disinfect-
ing work they can 10. they will yet scw
a small percentage of such diseases into
their land they will understand why it
is essential that they select a reason
able wide serted crop rotation and stick
10 it. When the farmers also UNDER
stand that these infectious diseases are
infectious diseases in the same sense as
CHAMBERS. measels or whoopine cough
they will understand how important it
is to keep their less intelligent neigh
bors informed with regard to the matter,
advise with them and get them to do
the same sort of work in wheat cropping
that they are doing. Then. rotation
will have q new meaning for all which
has not been previously erasped.
THE RELATION OF THE DISEASES
TO MANURES:
These facts regarding wheat diseases
make plain q number of matters which
heretofore have not been we'll under
stood. 1. They very largely explain
the supposed injurious effects of the
application of harnyard manures and
the supposed injurious effects of too
much working of the land as for ex-
ample, ~overworked summer fallow.
They also explain why some farmers
have failed to get good results with
wheat after corn. What is the use of
carrying out a carefully conducted
rotation and corn cultivation if the
land is to be again filled full of dis
eases by applying fresh uncomposted
barnyard n made from old wheat
straw from diseased fields. Or, again,
it may be said, what can be expected
from carefully cultivatine the ground
and keeping it clean from weeds if
fresh manur full of weed seeds and
such diseases are applied, or if the
farmer carelessly uses any old shrivelled
wheat that he can get for seed. every
seed of which contains one or more of
the diseases to which wheat is heir.
ON THE USE OF BARNARD MA
NURES
As indicated there is little sense in
carrying out carefully planned systems
of seed selection, seed treatment and
rotation and seed bed preparation if the
present method of using barnyard
manures is persisted in. Such manures
should be thoroughly composted and
all portions not composted set aside and
thrown back into the compost heap for
further decay before they are placed
upon the land. For example, fresh
barnyard manures, uncomposted, made
from flax straw, wheat straw or barley
straw, should never be used upon lands
upon which any one of these crops is
going to follow within the next two
years. That is. flax straw should not
Immediately precede flax. etc. You
will understand why, when | say that
by means of the old wheat straw which
contains the wheat diseases the new
lands of the prairie may be so infected
: with wheat diseases that it is impos-
sible to raise any more than an ordi-
nary crop even under the best weather
conditions or that a small amount of
old flax straw used as bedding and
; mixed in the barnyard manures when
distributed over the best of new land
; will fix those lands so that ordinary
fax cannot grow there.
; Before crop rotation, seed selection
, and seed treatment can give the most
l will need to understand more about the
! use of barnyard manures. for there are
certain conditions under which they
t should not be applied. A good way to
use manure, if it is to be used in the
fresh form, is to spread it upon the
g pasture and hay lands or over the lands
to be cropped afterwards to cultivated
e crops. and next, to plant such lands to
the cereal crop which is different from
s the kind of straw which was used i IN
making the manure. For example. if
manure made from fax straw is used Oh
t the sod lands, then wheat. oats. barley,
etc.. should follow the corn if manure
made from wheat is used on the sod
then fax, oats. barley, etc., should fol-
low the corn. The idea is to allow the
old straw to be decomposed and the
. kinds of diseases which it bears to be
destroyed before another crop which
I may be infected by these diseases is
placed upon the land. Again, l affirm
that the value of crop rotation as such
will never be fully obtained until most
! OF the farmers in this great wheat
3 growing region have broken their farms
up into five or six year crop rotation
s areas. This will tend to separate the
wheat fields by larger intervening spaces
leaving them less liable to infection
: just as a few rows of sunf1owers planted