The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1916-01-06
(By Don Shannon.)

my fathers farm three miles from
Bemidji, on the upper Mississippi
river, in the cut-over country. 1t con-
tanned 1875 acres of light sandy soil,
20 acres under cultivation, most of
which had been we'll fertilized, and
was in fairly good tilth, and IL
acres of riverbottom hay land. My
father is a railroad man, living on
the farm and driving to and from
his work. There were three milk
COWS, one heifer and team of horses.
Since there was not enough stock
to provide living, I decided to do
some market gardening. had
worked during February and March
making hot-beds for a gardener near
st. Paul; so I Immediately made a
hol-bed, in which I grew early cab
bages, tomatoes, radishes and let
tuce. This turned out a complete
success. l got sale for my surplus
cabbage and tomato plants, and got
a small quantity of radishes and let
tuce on the Bemidji market before
the gardens had commenced to pro-
duce. Before the summer was over,
I wished I had everything under
glass. Every small farm should
have hot-bed.
I cropped the farm as follows:
Spring rye, acres; corn, II acres
Cncluding 1 1-2 acres sweet corn);
beans, 3 acres; one-half acre pota-
toes; one-half acre rutabages, and
one-half acre garden truck. You
will notice comparatively large
acreage Of corn, but on our sandy
soil that is well fertilized we raise
excellent corn, Minnesota No, 13
No. 23 and various flint varieties
The first thing found out when I
started was that 2 1-2 acres clover
of last years seeding had winter
killed. Next time I will seed timo-
thy in it. Some of my neighbors
would rather have all clover, and
plow it under if it winter-kills; but
that is not always convenient when
you have your work planned ahead.
We have learned to study our soil
more each year. In the four years
we have been here, we have seen a
majority of failures of oats on light
sandy soil, last year being an excep-
ton. Even on we'll manured ground
the hot weather in July dries out the
soil. One year, we all seeded our
oats late, when the wet weather of
the spring was over, the roots would
grow downward for moisture and so
be in good position to get moisture
in July, but as is usual with late
sown oats, they rusted. So we have
come to regard winter rye as the best
substitute, for no case is on record
of the failure of winter rye It even
withstood the winter of 1914-15.
Another crop we are boosting for
our sandy soil is white navy beans.
I planted mine in rows, 80 inches
apart and three to hill, six inches
apart in the row. In spite of nu-
merous frosts, they made a fair yield.
We have learned, however, that we
must have machinery for growing
them on large scale. The grain
drill does for planting, and we have
a harvester and picker, but no bean
puller. 1t is eart-breaking work to
thresh them with fail, and about
one month of such work would rob
a person of all ambition.
We have pasture problem. The
ground under the jack pines is cov-
cred with needles, and there no grass
grows. However, we are seeding
bluegrass and timothy in our clear
ings. A forest fire ran through our
woods early in the season, and there
grass sprung upI which furnished
excellent pasture, so in the future
we will burn all our slashings. Win
ter rye comes in handy for pasture
Our COWS were dry during the late
fall, and we fed very little feed up
TLE TIIE