The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1915-04-30
r. G. MASTERTON, Mgr.

ne 0e NAFAS HIA Ol\S NhSls
The Red river valley will alway raise
wheat and otheS cereals as the principal
crop.
| There isn't any such thing as worn
out field" in this valley after forty years
continual cropping without the applica-
tion of fertilizers.
The only great difference between
"good crops" aud "bad crops" in this
valley is the season and the farmers.
We know that many il not all the
above statements will be doubted.
We know that they are contrary to
the common belief.
We know they are mostly contrary to
the teaching of scientific experts"
But this writer has lived and farmed
10y proxy in this county for almost forty
years. The proof of the pudding is the
eating.
If each farmer had been busy hauling
away the soil from his farm during the
last twenty-tiv years, hauling twenty
five loads day for two hundred days in
, , the year he would still nave left three OF
four feet deep of the best and most fer
tile loan and twelve to fifteen feet of
yellow clay below that which will raise
just as good crops of cereals as the loan,
for he would have only stripped SIX
inches from the surface of his farm.
Just how much soil the farmer haul
away when he takes grain to the elevator
can be calculated by the size of the ash
pile left after burning the straw. The
rest of the growth Of his crop came from
the alr-and has gone back there with
the fire.
We are not saying that the farmer does
not take some away, but it is like dipping
up water from the ocean in pint cup,
in this valley.
We are not denying that rotation,
diversifying, fertilizing, etc. are not good
things. We are not denying that cattle,
horses and hogs are good things. We
believe in alfalfa, corn and silage. But
We don't believe in the reason gwen by
many "agriculturalists'' that we must
have these things because we are Tex
hausting" the soil.
Because of the want of water and
shelter, this valley as q whole is not
adapted to stock. Some stock every
farmer can keep but not many head as
in the last winter some farmers had to
haul water from the rivers several miles
distant.
The only real trouble that the good
farmer has to-day in raising wheat on
his Red river valley land is weeds. In
the early years there were but few weeds.
New broken land would lay bare for
year without anything growing thereon.
Now the weeds seem to start five minutes
after the plow turns the furrow.
To kill weeds we must farm different
ly than before. (By the way, il the land
is exhausted" why such prolific growth
uf weeds?)
That the yield of wheat is seemingly
growing less is only one of the lies that
figures are always telling in statistics"
We don't know Of any bigger pfevarica-
tor than old man Statistics.
Four farmers raise on their respective
quarter sections 25, 20, and bushels
of wheat to the acre. Everybody knows
why the latter farmers did not get any
more They raised too many wild oats
on the same land. But Mr.. Statistics
comes along and adds up the respective
yields, divides by four, gets Is bushel
average and says that is the average
crop of North Dakota.
But the fact is that the real average Of
the land in nearer q bushels. In the
former figures Mr.. Statistics also added
in the two poor farmers as part of the
land.
We wanted to say something about
fertilizer, but will just now only make
the assertion that while manure is often
of mechanical benefit, and perhaps has q
little chemical effect, but its principal
use is that of an inocculator. q culture
for bacteria,-and it is bacteria that
makes seeds germihate and grow.
The open prairie farmer does not need
to think that he must "stock up" to any
great extent to live. II he is going ex-
tensively into stock he better get another
location. But he can raise corn, pota.
toes, grass. alfalfa, etc. and keep enough
stock to eat it. But that need take only