The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1916-09-15
DEMONSTRATION AGENT
TELLS OF NORTHERN TRIP

LulCOT 1lIHeS-heCOTu' DelIlS UHe
Of the fortunate fifty-four on the re-
cent Farmers Observation Tour" of
the north, | deem it of interest to
your readers to write something about
some of our observations. The tour
proper covered only ten days, but as a
full chapter could we'll be devoted to
each day, this article will necessarily
have to deal only with the most salient
features of the trip.
The first stop was made at Cham
paign- Urbana, Illinois, the seat of the
state agricultural college. This is one
of the largest agricultural colleges
in the country, the campus covering
21O acres with its 43 buildings and
student enrolment of $500, last of
which 1855 were students of agricul-
ture. The college farm comprises
800 acres on which are being given
practical demonstrations in all phases
of work in farm products and live
stock. Two interesting tests here
are % A pen of cows which have
been fed for the past four years on
corn Silage and cottonseed meal alone
and showing splendid condition; (2) A
plat of land planted continuously to
corn for the past 81 years and with
an average yield yet of % bushels.
Another experiment besides this is
thee plats, No. / of which has had
only corn and yield this, the 10th
year of 26 bushels; End, plat has had
soiling crops with corn and turned
under and made this year 60 bushels;
the third plat had both soiling crops
and fertilizers (barnyard) and made
80 bushels. This shows plainly the
effect of humus additions to soil,
fact which no farmer, north or south,
can afford to overlook. 1t is safe to
say that not an acre of this Illinois
prairie would have produced from vir
gin soil over 40 bushels of corn, but
through drainage, good seed and good
tillage, soil conservation and building,
there are now thousands of acres pro-
ducing double this yield. What has
been done in Illinois can be done in
Louisiana.
The Funk Brothers, seed corn spe-
cialists, at Bloomington, showed us
some very interesting and instructive
results in corn breeding. These men
have taught the people of Illinois a
'esson in seed corn values that has
added millions of dollars to the wealth
Of that state. Pedigreed corn is now
the slogan there and a farmer would
no more expect a good crop of corn
from a planting of scrub seed than he
would expect a scrub cow to become
profitable producer in his dairy.
The Louisiana Corn Breeders associa-
ton is trying to do for this state
what the agricultural college and
Funk Bros. have done in Illinois.
At Chicago we visited South Water
street and with it's enormous volume
of produce arriving daily, we were i'm
pressed with that great truth that uni
formity of produce and pack count
tremendously. At the Union Stock
Yards where we were guests of the
Armour and Swift companies, unifor-
nifty of shipments was shown to adj
vantage; a car of solid black, red or
whatever. color of stock finding a
much more ready buyer than motley
car of stuff that may otherwise be
just as good. The one other great les
son here was efficiency and economy.
Not scrap of products nor minute
of time is lost, everything bieng done
with clock-like precision.
Our route next led to Milwaukee
where we spent only a few hours;
Just long enough to find out what
made the town famous. Our next
stop of interest was at Waukesha,
Wisconsin, which is in the dairy CEN
ter of the northwest. That state
leads all others in amount of dairy
products and has within its borders
some of the finest strains of dairy cat
tie in the world. We spent part of
two days driving through the country,
visiting dairymen and getting infor-
nation at first hand. A ride through
that part of the state is like drive
through miles of parks, every farm
house and barn and every acre of
land almost as well cared for as if it
were a park. Milk sells at the farm
house door at IL to Is cents COLON;
butter fat at 32c a pound. They feed
all the year round, few of the cattle
ever stepping inside pasture. We