The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1911-04-13
A Vision Of Dry Farming

The following letter will be of In
terest to all who are interested in mod
ern methods Of agriculture:
Point Iona, Cal, March 22.-Presi-
dent j. H Worst. Fargo. N. D.,
Dear Sir: Our legislature adjourns In
few days. There lies piegon-holed a
bill for dry-farming experiment sta
tion7- sleeping the sleep Of the just, and
yet up in Washington they grew last
year 100000 bushels of dry far1ned
wheat on eleven to twelve inches Of
rainfall! They forget that a mulch
will seal in irrigative ditch water as
well as rain water and that intensive,
intelligent dry farm methods of culti-
walton mean SO per cent salvage in ir-
rigating bills to the farmerl Califor-
MIA needs dry farming.
The dense ignorance shown, the
skepticism expressed as to practical
biiity, ETC., is simply appalling to any
one understanding the A. B. C's of dry
farming.
Here / am. q shut-in, crippled for
life by a drastic colotomy operation,
writing and 'phoning from my sick
bed, trying to save that bill may
succeed, but already it has all but sap
ped my strength. The article in The
Call may help it though to passage.
II so, alls WE'LL
believe we are ell living, farmer
and theorist, in an agricultural kim
Hdergarten and that's what / am striv-
ing to do in getting Secretary will
son to establish the /, 2, 3, acre dem
onstration, intensively cultivated
farms, with chickens for the cash crop.
| (Creating a kindergarten system here
OF farming.) / believe 1 will succeed
in having Secretary Wilson establish
ana equip these farms in time for the
1915 fair. OF course this is a south
ern California proposition, mainly,
whore 365 days in the year a man can
WELD hoe.
| The man and woman who come here
and make good" on one acre, will get
ambitions and want FIVE acres; hired
man, horse plow, alfalfa cows, etc,
and then we have the little French
farm intensively cultivated. And the
ive-acre farmer with ambition In his
blood and education under his hat
takes up $40 acres and now we have
our dry farmer who, in time, is in
oud dry farmer who, in time, is to
make the farm home many more times
as attractive as the city store or office;
the dry farmer who will be power in
the land and who win see that the pub
! lie school curriculum is well planted
and seeded, in rudimentary way, and
the recess and the hour or so after
school given over to working little
mouchodr (handkerchief) plots of land
and then the agricultural college wiz
| be the goal, not the high school, and
then welI turn percentages about. The
farmer will be prince in the land and
the land will flow with milk and honeyi
A million such farmers will sway this
nation-for good, verify will all kotow
| to king farmer" But we must build
him on higher plane than today. It's
all to come and you, sir, are paving the
wayl The agricultural teacher today
is building better than he knows.
/ lie In my bed and look out upon the
chapparaL sage and cactus ground and
recognize that the underlying humus
Is az times richer in nitrogen than the
! hurnus of moist lands. / see great
stretches OF that land. millions Of acres
of II shedding the twelve to fourteen
Inches of rainfall, yielding for a few
weeks q carpet of wild flowers that
gIaddens the eye, only to wilt and the
whole landscape becomes crisp and
brown, becomes sere and yellow, under
| the semi tropical sun, the earth hold
| ing in it's bosom millions of imprisoned
gaads ready to embrace and welcome
the FIRST drop OF open sesame" rain.
Then see that land plowed deeply
with gaping burrows like open mouths,
fhirstinR for the rains and greedily
drinking in every drop. see the har-
row busting the surface and now
and then. every month or two, see 1t
(the harrow, run over millions Of
acres OF that dusty "idle'--yet very
busy soil, as II keeps steadily on the
job Of plant food making under the
warm sun The clouds gather, the
acres are again opened up, and anoth-
er ten, twelve or fourteen inches OF
rainfall are stored up, and sealed In.
The wheat is drilled In and again as 1t
shoots up, narrowed once or twice--and
i see 1t Just fiirt with the hot winds
and scorching sun. transpiring perfect
" from the rootlets six feet down in
the wet earth. and see the emerald
change into a brown, then golden
hue. and see the full. plump beads
fall under the changing knives Of the
mover and reaper. / see sacks OF grain
piled high upon the dusty land and sea
we'll dressed farmers and their bright.
manly boys, agricultural school gradu- j
ateg tagging the sacks ana taIlyins
the record Of numbers and weights III
q way they learned at school And /
look at the count 20. so. 20. SO. maybe
GO even sB or 10 bushels or wheat To
the aerel THE first panorama. moving
agricultura1 scenes is thrown on the
curtain ais the disc and harrow follow
the harvester close In its wake; the
farmer Jealous lest the moisture ia the
SOIL, not yet used up. may escape
I look again and see farm houses,
not sod houses modern dwellings,
snodsrnly equipped. as much 50 as any
|cstv houses hear pianos, pllono-
graphs. and pianoIag playing. hear
the phone bells calling I ses tennis
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