The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1918-07-12
CROP OUTLOOK IS VERY
BRIGHT FOR THIS VALLEY
Mark Austin Gives Interesting Report on Beet
Crop and Also Speaks About
Road Improvement.

The report of crop conditions in
the Snake river valley, SO far as this
office has been able to learn, indicate
that there will be bountiful har.
vest.
Bingham county, or rather the
middle and southern half of the
county, will lose considerable due
to the fact that the beets and po.
tatoes did not 9erminate well and
the results are poor stand. A
large portion of the wheat on sandy
land was blown out by the high
winds of spring and the spring
wheat on the dry farms is nearly a
failure. The winter wheat will be
better, however.
The dry farms in the upper val.
ley and along the adjacent foothills
show promise Of bumper crops as
do also the crops on the irrigated
lands.
Mark Austin, the agricultural
superintendent for the Utah-Idaho
Sugar company reports that the pro-
spects for the sugar crops this year
in the western states Is very good
He says that Bingham county re-
cords more losses than anywhere
else and this is scarcely noticed in
the general average. Mr.. Austin re-
ports that where the beet crop is
light it is more the fault of the
method than of the climate. Where
the plowing was done in the fall and
the spring work was done at the
right time and in the right way to
conserve the moisture, the stand of
beets is good, but where the ground
was titled too much in thespring
and where the blowing was done in
the spring or where the beets were
planted late is where the poorest
stand is found.
Mr.. Austin mentioned one good
beet farmer at North Yakima, WASH,
who plowed nineteen acres of alfalfa
under last fall, narrowed the ground
and planted the beets in the latter
part of March and has prospect of
thirty or thirty-five tons per acre.
When the spring drive was made to
increase the acreage of sugar beets
this man plowed ten acres more and
planted it and it looks like it would
make about six tons to the acre.
When he had finished plowing the
ten acres he found there was not
quite so much as he intended to
plow so plowed another strip Of one
acre and planted it. On that piece
he has scarcely anything. The
farmers in that section have taken
this as a demonstration of nautre be-
ing alright If the farmers methods
are made to fit, and that there Is
failure in store for the man who
does not conform to the plan nature
places at his disposal.
In the Blackfoot district a nurIe
less than ten thousand acres were
planted this spring and we have all
the different kinds Of beets described
on the North Yakima farm excepting
possibly the production Of thirty or
thirty-five tons per acre on the best.
Our best beets will probably record
twenty or twenty-five tons, possibly
twenty-eight. Out of the ten thou
sand acres planted there are
now about four thousand acres
that look like they would
produce normal crop. About
two thousand that present about
half a stand, but by reason of
their being so thin it is expected
that the beets will grow larger and
make two-thirds or three-fourths Of
the normal crop. Then there are
about two thousand more acres that
have less than half a stand and will
produce from half a crop down to
scarcely nothing.
Mr.. Austin insists that farmers
are not receiving the best returns
on their land and will not until they
recognize the fact that cultivation
must be done at the time when it
mellows the ground rather than bak-
ing it or leaving it loose and porous.
There is fine distinction between
those three conditions that farmers
do not all recognize and act upon.