The Idaho Republican., 1916-06-02
The CUB SAYS

their ground carefully to make a
dust mulch by pulverizing the clods,
saw q great deal of their finest soil
lifted off the fields by the recent
wind storms. That kind Of prepara-
tion has been disastrous this spring
on that account. Taking 1t one year
with another it is said by the exeri-
enced observers that it Is safest to
leave the ground covered with the
little clods, allowing them to break
the wind off of the finer particles
below. Where this plan has been
followed on the dry farms the. mois-
ture lay close to the mulch after the
high winds had exhausted the supply
in the ground that had not been
treated at all to keep the surface
broken.
The continued cold weather with
high winds have dried out the
ground and especially where it had
not been pulxerized to maintain a
proper mulch. The dry farmers whose
wheat was drilled in on stubble
ground and not worked since report
that but for the showers of the past
few days the ground would have
been too dry for anything to grow.
l.. e. Dillingham;, editor of The
Mackay Miner. returned the last of
the week from trip thru the Ban
croft country organizing the horse
and cattle men and reports that the
dry farmers were greatly discour-
aged They. have already had two
crop failures and the high winds of
this spring had SO dried out their
fields that they expect another fall
ure.
Messrs Paxton, Hubbell and
Bailey, of Mackay, have dry farm
in the midst of the lava beds west of
Arco. 1t was just great pocket of
couple of thousand acres surround
ed in such way that it required no
fencing, but they had to make a
road in. They have studied dry farm
ing from every angle they could,
have visited the Rexburg bench and
the American Falls plains, have con-
ferred with the government stations
and read the bulletins, and yet have
not met with enough success to make
them feel courageous about the fu-
ture of the undertaking. Our in
formant mentions rather ingenious
method they adopted for supplying
water for domestic purposes during
the spring months without hauling
it. They spread straw over the big
snow banks that formed along the
protected places and this kept 1t
from melting when the rest of the
snow did. The price of well in
those parts is estimated at from one
thousand dollars up.
Joe Marks, who lives a couple of
miles east of Blackfoot, reports that
he replanted his sugar beets after
the hard freezes of two weeks ago
and Mondays wind storm blew the
seed out of the ground The little
creases made by the drill seemed to
attract the, force of the wind and 1t
simply lifted the dust and sand out
and left the creases minus the seed.
Joe was very much discouraged
about farming and if such a streak
of lean weather had been given him
when he first tried to far mhe would
probably have quit promptly.
Several years ago this paper pub
lished an account of the undertaking
of Wayne Darlington at Darlington
station, introducing the mule-foot
hogs. He put up an expensive hog
house, had it plummed and all rig
ged up for convenience in feeding
and watering, and in short prepared
to operate something like hospital
in the hog line it was so complete.
He raised some of the hogs but fail
ed to introduce them and the busi-
ness went to decay. The buildings
and apparatus are in tumble down
condition now.
A cooperative creamery started at
Darlington seven or eight years ago
is now standing idle, never having
operated excepting for the first few
months. Lack of cream and the
heavy expense of gathering it upl
from the scattered ranches made 1t
impossible to keep the expenses with
in the income.
The Touring mill at Mackay is idle
and has been for some months.
Morninoside is the name of poul-
try farm at the eastern edge of
Blackfoot, where they raise pure bred
white leghorns and barred Plymouth
rocks There are about 1900 of all
sizes from cockerells as large as
turkey to the chicks just kicking out
of the Shells They hatch them with
hens and incubators, the choicest
eggs being placed under hens. In
operating the incubators they initiate
the acts of the hen as closely as pos
sible. In the morning when the
hens go off the nest they open the
incubators and ventilate and cool the
eggs down a little, for about 20 min
yates. They turn the eggs over to
keep the coming chick from settling
to one side of the eggs just as the
hon does. Towards evening the cool
ing and turning are repeated. There
is one instrument in the incubator to
record the temperature and another
to record the dampness or vapor, and
the latter is considered very import
ant in this dry climate.
Nearly all the chickens at Morning
side are tame and many of them like
to be picked up and talked to and
fed from the hand They have one
little fellow that lost his feathers
and ran around naked for a while.
The weather was cold and Mr.. Fehn-
ell out of the goodness of his big
Il ~ szt- L