The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1917-06-07
THE LAND OF GRASS AND CATTLE
ALFRED WENTZ, in The Dakota Farmer

zAA1INID ElNx l.,
%
N my desk is a worn copy of a
Dakota Farmer atlas. Out home
is another, also we'll thumbed.
Hardly a day passes, save when
I am travelling, but that I consult it.
And when on the road I have the ter
ritory itself to study with all it's char
a~racterictics and possibilities-The
Dakota Farmer Empire.
This Empire comprises the states
of North and South Dakota, Montana
and Wyoming. Let us take the map
of the United States found in the at
las and trace thereon it's boundaries.
1t is within what might be called the
Great Northwest. And the term
northwest" expresses the location
and lay of the land-its general slope
is upward to the north and west,and
to ascend it's rivers, usually the first
lines followed by civilization into an
UNEMPLOYED country, takes n north
westerly. Mark the railroads that
have trailed the river boats and OK
teams which led the way-the network
of lines resolves itself into a fan with
the handle dropped to the southeast
and the ribs spread out toward the
sunset.
The movements of population have
been in this direction. A few hardy
frontiersmen appeared far to the west
during early days and, in the mines
or on the cattle range or within shell
tered valleys, made for themselves a
h%abitation. But the true immigration
has been a wave slowly moving out Of
the east, receding at times as dur
ing the early COS and again following
the disastrous season of 1911, but ev-
er returning with increasing volume
and spreading out in farms upon the
prairies.
The cowboys rode ahead of this i'm
migration. Even before Civil Wa
times they we're trailing cattle by the
thousands on free range. This con-
dition was much the same as when
Nature herded buffalo. But it was
destined to be short-lived. It had to
give way before the railroad and the
wire fence which heralded the farmer.
The pioneering farmers found grass,
and Empire stretched out in plains OF
green rising to the mountains on the
west and broken here and there by
badlands, ripples of moraines and the
marvellous Black Hills. The prairie
was the outstanding feature. Grass
was everywhere.
Grass-do you realize our depend
ence on grass? We speak Of corn as
king and think often on the rich gar
ner of the wheat. But grass is
greatest O "Should its harvest
fail for a single year, famine would
depopulate the world" Grass IS the
prime necessity in the growth OF our
foodstuffs. Trace out the history not
onlv of our meats but Of our grams
as we'll and see the vital relationship
a bears to them. Attempt 70
raise horses and keep them without
grass-the horses we need Tor power
in raising grain! Grass is fundamen-
tai. w.
How many of us know grass! we
are sometimes admonished to "go to
GRASS" It might be we'll to do so. l
did last summer, spending over a
week on the prairies of western North
Dakota and eastern Montana with a
botanist, John Sarvis. l have llVeo
on the prairies all my life, but new
er saw a Theoretically saw it.
until John showed it to me. he soon
had Mr.. Cooper and me down on our
Knees peering into the marvellous
things to be found in the grass.
The multiplicity of plants thai car,
net the prairies is. bewildering. Wlid
Grass is not made up Of the aggregate
If a single variety-there are dozens
IN the sod. But not all Of them are
GOOD for feed. There are sedges Or
hull sod, and wire grass and alkali'
which had little or no value on a Dui-
falo's bill of fare. These we Gun al
most everywhere, sometimes in aouno-
ance and again scattering. They ex-
;st side by side with the benetlclent
grasses like blue grama, western
wheat, June and needle. But why
in such varying pIoPoIeAols
Wherever the sod had been over-
prazed, there we found the grasses
being run out by plants like the sed-
pes-or rather, they had been destroy
ed bv the cattle and their places were
being taken by inedible growth. Ma
ture keeps the soil covered by vege-
tation. If the luscious grasses are
pnawed out, she grows something
on the ground that the cattle will 0
touch. =.
Nature is a wise old mother. In
raising the lowly crop Of the pralr1es
+hat is harvested by cattle, she al
wavs practices rotations, as well a.
keeping something growing all the
r.. - 80 ot n the w0y