Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1912-02-01

THE WHEAT CROP.
BY A. Division, Superintendent
Extension Division, Mime
sofa Agricultural College.
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Much has been said regarding the
inadvisability of growing large acre
ages of wheat. The fact remains, how
ever, that wheat has been, and con-
tinuer.ae, the most important prod
uct OF Minnesota farms. It has been
the crop that has practically built up
Minnesota, as it furnished such an in
come to farmers as enabled them to
develop Minnesota farms before the
days when live stock products brought
q price sufficient to make their pro-
duction profitable.
A study Of Minnesota Experiment
Station Bulletin No. III, which shows
the cost of producing wheat in differ
ent parts of Minnesota, is interesting;
and 1t shows some places where we
believe improvement can be made and
larger profits secured in wheat grow
Ing. The average cost per acre of
growing wheat on the statistical route
at Marshall, In Lyon county, for five
years, was $3.50 per acre, including SO
for rent on land. In looking over the
various items which make up this cost,
such as seed, preparation of the soil,
seeding, harvesting, shocking, thresh-
ing, etc., one is impressed with this
fact: The cost of the seed and prepare
ton of the soil amounts to about $2.35
per acre, or about one-fourth of the
total cost Of producing the crop. The
two items, seed and soil preparation,
afford, in our judgment, the two points
where Improvement can most easily
be made.
The average cost of seed on these
farms, including the cleaning and all,
amounted to $1.04 per acre. Had each
one of these farms run all of the wheat
produced on their farms through a
good grain grader, and taken from the
whole amount 10 or 20 per cent of the
heaviest, plumpest seed, thus getting
clean and we'll developed seed adapt
ed to their locality, each would have
had the very best kind of seed to SOW,
at an additional cost of not to exceed
10 cents per acre. There is little doubt
but that this added 10 cents per acre
would have returned a good many
times that amount in increased yields,
due to the better seed.
The $1.31 spent for blowing and har-
rowing the land-of which $1.14 is for
blowing, leaving only II cents for har.
roWing-leaves no doubt in the mind
Of anyone familiar with farming opera.
lions, that the soil could not in all
cases have been thoroughly prepared.
Had an additional 70 cents worth of
labor been added to the preparation of
each acre of this soil, which would
have meant thorough double discing
OF every acre, there is little doubt but
that this additional investment would
have proved exceedingly profitable.
While growing wheat, or any grain
crop, continuously on the same land is
not to be recommended, there is lit
tie question but that, by thoroughly
preparing the soil, by good systems of
rotations. by occasional manuring, by
thorough blowing and discing, and by
the use of good seed-such as any
farmer may have by carefully grading
the seed produced on his farm, and
using only the best-the production of
the wheat crop and all grain crops
may be made profitable part of a
well organized farm business.