The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1916-03-24
ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY
FARM BUREAU
BERT L. FRANCE
Farm Adviser

confronted with the constantly in
creasing population of our country?
To provide abundantly for this pop
ulation, it is becoming necessary for
our successful farmers TO rapidly in
crease in number. The successful
farmer of today is the one who can
improve his farm within itself so that
J his several neighbors may do the
same.
Our problems then being the addi-
ton of nitrogen to the soil, and the
increasing of protein feed supply, and
since nitrogen bears much the same
relation to the plant which does pro.
tein to animal life, and protein is larg-
ly nitrogen, then the two are so bound
, together that the solution of one may
very apt be the solution of the other.
When our protein in the past could
be purchased so cheaply, it was a diff
ficult matter to induce farmers to grow
their protein. But of late years they
are ready to study the problem of a
protein supply and to study out some
solution for It.
So to those who in just recent years
have given the soybean such a boost,
we owe great deal, This plant has
not only been the means of directly
solving to a very large extent the two
great problems of our agriculture,
but through study of its possibilities
thousands of farmers have been in
duced to give far more interest to the
practical use of other legumes.
The corn crop long ago solved the
problem of supplying the bulky car
bohydrates food for our farm animals
supplemented of course by ordinary
hay of few kinds. The growing Of
soybeans is the most natural and rea-
sonable way of producing the high
analysing protein feed on the average
American farm. In our county it will
work splendidly in a rotation of corn
soybeans, wheat and clover. There are
three times as much digestible pro.
tein produced on an acre of good soy
beans as on an acre of good oats. II
looks like that would supply the neet
of the stock man very nicely.
When we consider that soybeanI
may be planted Immediately after thu
corn is planted not interfering will
any other work, and that an acre will
produce 10 to 20 bushels of the grair
and may produce even more, and thai
it also will produce 1 to 8 tons of the
very best hay, we begin to realize
some of its possibilities.
By experiment it has been founC
that soybeans are worth more thar
middlings as hog feed. When sub
stituted for oats in corn and oats
mixture for lambs, it was found that
they gave larger gain both in WOO
and mutton than with the origina
mixture.
We believe that the poultry business
is going to prove one of the largest
bidders for the commercial soybear
grain crop. 1t is claimed that chick
ems relish the ripe soybeans and thai
this feed encourages egg production
Several of the prominent manufac
turers of paints are beginning to use
soybean oil in the manufacture o
high grade paints.
Manchuria ships thousands of tons
of soybean oil cake, the byproduct o.
her soybean oil industry, to othe
countries.
Some of the dairymen on the Pacif
Coast write in highest terms of thi
cake as dairy feed.
! Next week we will have an articl
. in these columns on the varieties t,
: plant, method of planting, incubation
, cultivation, etc. A great many re
{ quests are coming in for information
! concerning soybeans and it is believ
! ed that these articles will supply tn
) need.
: 1t is unpleasant to lose old friends
> hIlt after this wears axnerianca th