The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1914-06-25

1t took four horses, but found anoth-
er farm down there. For seventy
years the plows had been packing that
down about six inches below the sur
face-running over it, and thus pack
ing it down. cut down through it,
mixed it up, and the neighbors here
laughed at me. Hoard, they said, you
won't get crop. You can look at the
field and judge for yourselves.
We sow from thirty to seventy acres
of alfalfa, and all the hay is matured
under caps. I learned, and my neigh
bors are also learning that drying hay
is not curing it. 1t is Of just as much
interest to put this hay in the barn in
the very best shape possible as it
would be so much bran to use for food
If I should drop on your farm ten
loads of bran, you farmers would work
like the devil, every one of you, to
get it up in good shape, and save it,
but when the same feeding value in
alfalfa lies before you, you take no
pains in securing it, It won't do. AL
falfa is cured, not dried. You lose
large part of it's value if you do not
cure it under cap. It requires four to
six days to cure it under cap. Every
forty-eight hours two men go with
forks and stick in the hay cocks, pull
it towards them on fresh ground and
60 on. They will handle twenty acres
day. This keeps it from smothering
the plants under the cocks. When it
goes through it's first sweat in large
quantities, that sweat is what burns
barns, starts spontaneous ignition,
where it is put in the barn after being
simply dried, but where it goes thru
this first sweat under caps, it prac-
tically eliminates all that.
cured one thousand pounds by the
ordinary method, of leaving it out to
sun dry. I fed it as against 1000
pounds of regularly cured hay. The
moment we commenced feeding the sun
dried alfalfa, the cows went down, put
them on the cured alfalfa, and they
came up, put them on the sun dried al
falfa and they went down, put them
back on the other and they came up.
Now, l have in these few moments
the results of my own experience, and
what has taken me years to find out.
If there is any bugaboo that is hold
ing men back from good profits, it is
the question of cannot afford this or
that. AS I said, you must get rid of
that idea, and take care of your alfal-
ia. Alfalfa has as much value in it
as bran, and it will pay you to put it
up in the same condition you would
bran.
After Gov. Hoard's short talk, Mr..
Glover addressed the party for few
minutes. He gave short history of
farming in Wisconsin,, especially JET
ferson county, stating they had start
ed to raise wheat in the early days,
but finally had to come to something
else. Mr.. Glover was raised in Wis
sonsin, moved with his parents to Min
nesota and later to Grafton, N. D.,
where he lived for two years, and then
went back to Minnesota to take up
stock raising, and is now connected
with the Hoard farm. He took up the
proposition of the necessity of the
proper chemical composition of the
soil, and explained the necessity Of
phosphorus potash and humus to get
the best results. Books on these sub
jects can be obtained from the Agri-
cultural College at Fargo, or the Dept
of Agriculture at Washington.
The next farm visited was the A..
Schulze farm, where we saw some of
the best Holstein stock. The herd is
led by Ukiah. Here we saw what is
!, claimed to be the best COW in the
world, whose record-we did not learn
, whether it was officials over 10000
: lbs. of milk per year for IL years,
7 raised six calves, averaged over 1000
lbs. butter per year. Three of the
) calves were triplets. The party who
gave US the information was from Sc
attic, {Wn., having come to this farm
to buy stock. He made the owner an