The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1911-11-02
DOTS0N WRITES
OF STATE COLLEGE
SIOUX FALLS EDITOR PAYS A
HIGH TRIBUTE TO LOCAL
INSTITUTION
IS DESERVING OF STATES HELP
Mr.. Dotson Writes Entertainingly Of
His Recent Trip to Bookings and
tn: State College

Editor G. l.. DOtSOn or the SIOUX
Falls Press, who addressed the School
of Journalism of the college last
week, gives the following interesting
account of his impressions OF the
State college:
If more farmers of South Dakota
knew more about the great work that
is being done at the State Agricultural
college, more of their o n would be
SEN there to be educated along the
lines of scientific farming. Scientific
farming as taught at that school has
to do with a knowledge of things from
the beginning to the end in crop
planting, crop growing and crop har-
vesting and finally with it's DISPOSE
ton.
The writer of this article was
born on an Iowa farm and remained
on the farm for twenty-three years.
At the time he was engaged in farm
ing and at the date of leaving the
farm he was not disposed to admit
that there was much left to learn
not about the ordinary business of
plain farming. The live stock a
good pastures to roam over with
abundance Of water and during the
winter there were the corn stalk
fields and fat straw stacks and sheds.
When seeding time came the seed
was sown. Providence was expected
to look after affairs pretty well after
that. The point about this is that
farming methods in those days were
not discussed. There was no testing OF
seed. There was no scientific discus
sion nor scientific knowledge OF SOIL
tillage. It is true that the farmers
were quite practical. They were pros
porous. They got rich. There were
fine country homes, great barns, farms
all well fenced, nice orchards and
vineyards. But the older the country
became the poorer the farms were.
There were no additions to the barns
and g~ranaries, the buildings were not
kept painted. The value of land in
creased. but it produced less. La
ter years farm methods changed and
those same farms have increased
more rapidly in value the past ten
years than at any other period OF
their existence as farms.
Some people have the impression
that all that is taught at the State
Agricultural college is limited to
farming matters. But the writer
found at the time OF his visit there
last week that fully one-half OF the
students are in the collegiate course
and in the scientific departments. 1t
would be important for the state II
these matters were understood by the
people of the state. There are boys
from the country who feel that they
want something more than an agrlcul-
tural education. Not knowing that
they can combine a farming education
with the very courses that are taught
at other colleges and universities, they
go elsewhere and in many Instance
they go to colleges outside the state.
No one can spend a day at the col
lege at Brookings and go away feel
ing that he is prepared to criticise
that great school. There are thirty
or more teachers, all OF whom are ex-
perts in their particular lines. An
hour with Prof. James Wilson and you
will feel that he is doing about the
best work of all departments or the
college. There is no nonsense, o no
fads nor cobwebs about his hog, cat
tie and sheep barns and pens. He
has his different kinds Of breeds. He
is prepared to show the difference be-
tween the well bred and the scrub as
money producers. He has bunches OF
hogs in separate pens. He keeps books
on them. He does not feed them all
alike, and at the end or each TWO
weeks or a month he knows how much
feed these different hogs have had
and what has been their increase in
weight. Prof. Wilson is prepared to
tell the farmers of South Dakota
about sheep. He has found that not
all breeds do we'll in this climate. He
is a great believer in silos. He has
three large silos filled with corn cut
when green and a fourth one Is be-
ing completed which will be used to
test out a new theory that dry cut
corn stalks make equally good silage
and in fact has claims for it that 1t
is a better fattener for certain stock.
A lot of farmers are becoming inter
ested in silos. Not many know what
they look like, how to build them, how
to fill them nor what to fill them
with. Mr.. Wilson Is an authority on
that subject which today is a big sub
@ ject with the farmer-any kind OF
farmer.
An hour with Prof. C. Larsen and
the dairy department OF this great
school and the visitor will have to
acknowledge that 1t Is a serious ques'
ton as to which Of these specialists Is
at the head of the greater work. The
milk COW on the farm is the little
bank to run to get the nickels and
dimes and the dollars TO buy the gro.
ceries and the dresses. Sometimes they
help to pay of the farm mortgage
They help to pay of the farm mort.
cages when milk producing cows are
kept and fed right. Prot. Larsen has