Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1911-08-17
Hiram Gul1ey's Lucky Crops


TOT German gardeners,-it being the
common practice to spread the rotted
manure over the field as far as It
would go. Instead of this, common
process Gulley sent OFF and had six
or seven carloads of fertilizer shipped
in, for which he paid from $1,000 to
$4,000 per ton, not including the
freight.
This was about the first modern
fertilizer ever shipped into that coun-
try. This stuff that Gulley used was
mineral fertilizer of about the consis-
tency of coarse cement. He even
tried to get his neighbors to use this,
offered them enough for free trial,
and explained that it was nothing
more than the scientific apportion-
ment of the various plant food ele-
ments taken from various rocks.
treated with acids and packing house
! ~ PA0uSto euuo' " Ie1luer Lnom
complete in the essential elements re-
CURED by plant life; that mineral fer
tilizer was nothing more than taking
the various plant food elements from
where they were plentiful and rend-
ering them available for placing
where they were needed.
He tried to explain that while it
cost more than manure, yet it didn't
cost anything to apply it; that it could
be put in grain drill and applied at
the same time as sowing the crop. But
his neighbors just looked at him out
of the corners Of their eyes.
One day some fellows in frock
coats came into the neighborhood dis
tributing talk and literature about a
western farm colony far enough away
to be interesting to most of his neigh
bors.
| Moving is a more interesting occu-
patton to the average Indifferent far
mer than tilling the soil at home, so
the promoters had no trouble in get
ting an audience. The text was that
young men go West.
Soon everyone was reading railroad
folders and extensively printed, we'll
illustrated booklets of the land COM
pany. Everyone advised everyone
else to move; the land in that locality
as the promoters put it, was about
worn out, the sons would be poorer
than the fathers as long as they re-
manned there.
None of these fellows ever went
near Hiram Gulley, for secretly they
knew that he was wise enough to be a
knocker. One day he passed group
of these western fever cases in the
country store, and some one ventured
to ask his judgment. They got it,
and about like this:
| Horace Greeley's advice was all
right at the time he gave it; but it
was intended for young men, and
most of you are no longer young men.
When Greeley gave this advice there
wasn't much distinction between the
West and Middle West, and nothing
was known Of scientific farming,
was just plow, SOW and harvest a
crop. If some of you fellows would
spend the same time reading the
printed matter of the government ag-
ricultura] experiment stations that
you do in reading that of land COM
panies you would know exactly what
mean, and the reason the land here
abouts is worn out and why you are
poorer than your fathers. You can't
take out of the soil like your fathers
did, without putting back into the
soil. You've got to feed land by fer
tilization the same as you feed stock.
You can't work a horse and not feed
it,
."There are three elements to plant
life,' continued Gulley, nitrogen,
phosphoric acid and potash, and you
can't keep pulling these out of the
soil faster than nature supplies them
without putting them back into the
soil. You should rotate your crops
with corn, wheat, oats and hay, and
give your fields rest from one crop
to another, on the same principle that
you find that a change of pasture
makes fat cattle.
"You fellows use barnyard manure
as far as it will go and when it won't
go any further you don't use any
thing. The first cost with mineral
Fertilizer, which contains the three
plant food elements in available form,
may be more, but it does not cost any
thing to completely apply tit is
done at the same time, with another
farming operation while spreading
manure requires complete farming