The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1915-08-13
four feet with well.fllled heads droopine
with their weight IN gold.


i And millions upon millions of these
golden. dropping heads form interroga.
tion points which dumbly but eloquent.
ly are asking our scientific friends, '.il
the soil ls played out. how came we here?'
Sometimes there is poorer field than
the rest, but that is not the fault Of the
lapd, 1t ls not want Of fertility. There
ls crop OF luxurlant vegetation there
all right, but is Is not what the farme,
intended. Neither the soil nor the ssa-
son can be blamed though.
These same lands have been under
cultivation with cereal crops alone
wheat nearly always. for from thirty to
forty years, without any attempt at fer.
tllizing except in small and exceptional
areas.
According to the scientists, after oil
these years there should be no crop a,
all in these fields. Certainly there
should not be crops that will go any
where from twenty to forty bushels pei
acre of wheat and other cereals in pro.
portion.-but the crops are there.
There are scores and perhaps hund.
reds Of quarter sections in Pemblna and
Walsh counties that will this year bear
as good, if not better crop than they
have ever borne since first broken
thirty, forty years ago
The trouble with our scientific friends,
is that they start out with certain book
theory. and then make everything fit to
that Get pattern. They only $50 with
fessseys. 4 +: " \ ~
It ID true that continual cropp.
ling Of one sort Of product will take some
/ fertility out Of the land. It is true that
farming should be diversified, for many
reasons. 1t is true that stock. raising
its mony forms may be advantageous Ia
the farmer, provided he knows stock,
and knows what to do with stock, though
that 10 not only trade IN itself, but il
really many trades, in, it's many diver.
sities.
But those things to the wheat farmer
are but side issues.
This valley is and always will be 4
wheat farm. 1t is not naturally adapted
to stock. Wheat is worth more money
to tho acre than grass or corn, when the
labor u figured IN.
What we object to is, to have our
friends spreading the scientific nonsense
that the fertility of the Red River Valley
is exhausted. We have troubles all
right, but this very year proves beyond
question that this generation hasn't
started to exhaust this three and fou,
feet Of black loan, not to say anything
about ten or fifteen feet of yellow clay
underneath that is just as fertile rs the
loan above. It does do lots of harm u
advertise to prospective immigrant from
other states that the lands of this valley
are exhausted. And yet. state, railroad
and even agricultural college literature
is full Of it.
To paraphrase the advertising man.
''The. Red River Valley has hardly been
scratched ye.."-
IT each farmer in this valley had haul.
ed 5000 loads or yards Of soil from bis
quarter section for the last twenty-five
years, he would have. removed only abou,
slx inchee from its surface, and would
have some 10 to ls feet more to haul
away before the coil would be entirely
exhausted. With . fact like this and
the fact Of the bounteous crops Of this
year. please eliminate that word ainier-
tile" from your dictionary. dear soientific
friends.
Given proper cultivation, clean fields.
and without fertilizer the soil of the
Valley is just - fertile as it ever was.