Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1914-01-29

Ihey sampiy proved tue SOIL. scattered the seed and
sold the harvest. Today things have changed and it
requires a much more intensive system of farming in
order to yield a fair show of profit, and the plans that
were successful years ago will not work now.
This is the reason why the dairy COW is so emf
nently adapted to the agricultural needs of South Da-
kota, where changes are taking place constantly that
make 1T necessary to increase the profit per acre if
even a fair rate of interest is to be gathered on the
money invested in the land. The beginners worked
on land that was worth perhaps $40, SIS or 500 an
acre, while we are farming on land that is worth from
$40 to 800 an acre. 1t is the difference between five
per cent on $15 and five per cent on $500 that makes
the difference in the demands that are made on the
farmers at this time.
The dairy COW is the key to the situation, because
the dairy cow yields more human food, and we all
know human food is the last analysis of the problem,
the thing that really counts. The dairy cow yields
more human food than any other animal that can be
kept upon the farm. The dairy COW not only furnishes
the market for the crop mt a price that is in excess of
practically every other market that the land provides,
but she also makes it possible to put back on the soil
the clements Of fertility and plant food that will make
succeeding crops more generous, that will make sue
ceeding harvests more in the bumper class.
The dairy cow is the key note to the farmers
bank account because she establishes a profit. an income
every week or every month in the year. The farmers
who live in dairy sections. the communities that are
built up around crcamtrir> are superior from the tinan-
cial standpoint to communities built up around any
other nucleus and the reason is because of the constant
income which the farmer has from his cows.
You may put the question to any banker, or to
any merchant, or to any business man. or professional
man in a community of this kind and he will tell you
that there are less poor accounts, that there are fewer
bad debts and fewer mortgages on the farms III a
dairy community than in any other place The rea-
son is because Of the constant and steady income upon
which the farmer may bank. But in this country
money is not the only thing we must take into con-
sideration. The man who depends upon handing down
to future generations a farm that will not be depleted
and starved, a farm whose soil will be rich in those
elements that will make future harvest possible, is the
man who looks to the dairy COW for the conservation
Of these elements which are in the soil.
The COW is the solution Of the conservation prob
lem. No other place is the problem so pertinent or so
insistent for an answer as it is right at home. Con-
servation often seems to imply things far distant, but
the real conservation that means most to us is the con-
servation that must be solved right here on the farms.
Uncle Sam has figured out that the death rate dur
ing the past year has been 1873 per thousand popula-
ton, showing that Notwithstanding the high cost Of
living an dthe increased sporting proclivities of the
American people, they live longer than im 1911 when
the rate was 14.2 per thousand