Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1911-10-05
j. J. HILL TALKS TO FARMERS OF;
NORTH DAKOTA

Address of Empire Builder at State
Exposition on Farms and
Farming
After visiting the Industrial Ex-
hibition at Bismarck, James J. Hill,
who spoke Friday last on better
farming methods for North Dakota,
said in part:
You have 35,OOO,000 acres of farm
land, according to the last census. l
mean by that 35,0Q0,O00 acres of
farms. If you could add $1,000 an
acre it would be $350,00O,0 II
you could add $40 it would be $780,
100000. Now I want to say to you
that you can add $50 an acre today.
1 saw today in that building exhibits
of what the soil of North Dakota
will do; what it will produce, what it
has produced, and what has been
done can be done again, and the
past season certainly was not a fav-i
orable one. talked with a gentle
man in there from the other side of
the river and he told me that they
raised over 800 bushels of potatoes,
and as fine as a man ever saw
saw samples of them-but he says
we have no market for them. Now
the Great Northern railway in the
last year, the last crop, carried over
5000 carloads Of potatoes and most of
them went to Texas for seed. There
is no reason why you can't get q
market. Show your potatoes. show
what they will yield per acre. Let
the men who are buying the potatoes
know what they will yield and what
it cost them to lay them down and
the problem is solved.
saw the evidence of the greatest
wealth. I saw an exhibit of corn
that would be a credit to corn state,s
and I saw what I believe to be. the
most valuable of all plants raised on
the farm. / saw an exhibit of alfalfa
many of them. There was one in
particular, and I want to take OF
my hat to the man who raised it,
somewhere up in McHenry county.
say to you that the land that will
grow four tons of alfalfa to the acre
is worth 500 to the acre of any
mans money, and the man who
knows this cannot afford to sell this
at that price because he cannot get
it anywhere else again.
Now the farmers of North Dakota
had a pretty easy time for a while.
1t seemed to be profitable not to run
a farm but wheat factory. Along
in 1SS3-maybe some of you were
not here then, but I was-there was
a dry season. There was no rain
from seed time until the night of the
second of July. The crop did not
die, but did not grow at all. It re-
NAMED green on the surface, but only
about eight inches high. After
the rain came then they got two
thirds of crop. We had a large
interest at that time-large in pro-
portion, although not as large as 1t
is now.
I thought that a violin with one
string would not make very good
music and / thought would help the
farmers to raise: more than one crop.
commenced distributing cattle and
hogs. A great many of the people
killed the hogs for Christmas
pork and sold the cattle to the people
who knew more of the value of cat
tie, than they did. They thought
/ was trying to ruin the northwest;
that the northwest never would be
q livestock country; that it would
never be anything more than a, No.
/ hard wheat country. They thot
/ was trying to ruin ita reputation
and that ought to be driven out of
the country.
When they got 1s, 20, rs and s6
bushels of wheat to the acre, they
thought that was all right, but con-
tinuous cropping of the wheat will
bring the land to the position where
its yield may be compared practical
ly to putting the grain in their ele-
vators. You take all the wheat max
ing qualities out Of the soil and you
can't raise wheat any more than you
can draw money out Of the bank
without making any deposit, or take
grain out of the elevator without
putting grain in. Your account will
be overdrawn sometime and your
draft won't be honored. You must
keep fertilixing the soil as 1t ought
to be fertilized.
vn,, have nccaaf0nallv creamery.