Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1911-10-19

Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa that will
stand next winter unharvested, and
in mute reproach Of the lack of a
little conserving intelligence sufficient
to store them in silos where the con
tents might be fed to cattle and
sheep and so produce an abundance
OF meat cheapIy for the people.
An average acre of that corn in an
average season if placed in a silo
VIII yield ten tons of the finest meat
and milk producing fodder known on
earth. Thirty pounds a day with ten
pounds Of alfalfa hay is sufficient to
fatten Is months old steer to the
pink OF condition in a year. Each
acre, then, and an acre of alfalfa,
would suffice to feed two steers for
the year. What a tremendous feed
ing power at low cost is here dis
closed and yet it is annually wasted
and not country district school or
school teacher is telling the farmer
and his children any better.
Think of the thousands upon thou
sands Of poor cows that are kept by
the farmers of the dairy states be-
cause they do not know better.
Think of the wasted labor to raise
the feed to support those cows, the
wasted time and effort to milk and
care for them when by exhaustive
research it can be shown that not
half Of those COWS are producing
enough to pay for their keeping.
You ask: Don't the farmers know
better than to keep such cows? Can
you believe they would continue to
breed and keep such cows if they
did know better? Everywhere is
seen the appalling waste of our farm
ing-in fertility, in poor live stock,
IN lack of breeding knowledge, in
lack of sanitary understanding, in a
lack of Intelligent methods of farm
management. The discomfort of the
farmer is great. Let US be thankful
for that, for we are told that dis
content is the vice of noble minds. .
But, likewise, everywhere is he mis-
led by contending politicians to be-
heVe that his salvation lies in pol
itics, in the tariff up, or the tariff
down, in fighting the corporations
and the trusts, in order that certain
leaders may have place and power.
He cannot escape the demand of
the millions who wait upon his hand
for bread and meat. He is response
Bile to his own good citizenship not
to waste the productive energies of
the state. He owes it to himself and
the hoped for profit of the labor of
his hands that he make of this cues
ton of the conservation of the faru
the foremost question of the age, as
it truly is.
Dairy farming, if rightly under
stood and conducted, has the power
to knit up this raveled sleeve" to
re-endow all of these wasted farms
with their original fertility and pro-
duCtiveness. For, understood, the
true dairy farmer must be a wise
manipulation of the soil, of plant
life, as well as animal life. No man
in the domain of agriculture is con-
fronted with a greater necessity of
knowing good from evil" at every
turn and in more ways, than is the
dairy farmers. Ignorance is at work
here to destroy fertility and profit
as we'll as Ill all other branches of
agriculture. But there are certain
natural advantages that govern here
in,
ID The dairyman must SO han
die his farm as to support sufficient
animal life to give him a living profit
for his time and labor.
(29 That animal life is a con-
slant contributor to the fertility of
the soil through the abundant man
ure that is made.
(3) AS a rule the dairy farmer is
a buyer as well as grower of feed,
particularly of heterogeneous feeds.
This gives added fertilizing value to
the manure.
(4 He builds silos and so con-
sumes the coarser roughage of the
farm, enabling him thereby TO carry
much larger stock of cattle, hogs
and sheep than he otherwise could.
(5) He is obliged to build barns
and sheds whereby the forage of the
farm shall be stored with the least
possible loss of its nutritive powers,
and consequently this saves waste
very greatly.
(6) He is compelled to become a
large producer of legumes, like clio
yer, alfalfa, vetch, etc, whereby by
natural means, nitrogen is more
largely restored to the soil.
All these are the natural and in
evitable things that belong to his vo-
cation if he is a man big enough to
comprehend them. But there are
some things he must do of an extra
character if he handles his farm so
as to, constantly increase its fertility
He must be a liberal feeder of the
land as we'll as his animals. He
must comprehend that nothing can
be grown on the farm without an ex-
penditure of nitrogen, phosphorus
and potash. The nitrogen to a large
extent, the legumes will evolve and
deposit il the soil. But the phos-