The diamond drill. (Crystal Falls, Iron County, Mich.) 1887-1996, 1918-08-17
and solicit your vote and support.
JAMES r. FLOOD.


County Agent Long drove through
TO Chatham last week TO attend a
meeting of the County Agricultural
Agents held there Thursday In spite
OF the bad weather. quite a successful
meeting was held. Dean r. s. Shaw,
and Frank Spragg, professor of plant
breeding from the Michigan agricul-
tural college. were there and gave
talks at the meeting.
The purpose of the gathering was to
make the county men better acquaint-
ed with the work OF the station farm.
and to get suggestions from them as
to how Il might be more beneficial to
the farmers Of the upper peninsula.
The station is carrying on work in
smaller way. such as that which Is
being done at the college experiment
station at East Lansing, but with par
ticular reference 10 upper peninsula
conditions and needs About 500 acres
OF land are now owned by the state
having been donated by the Cleveland
Cliffs Iron company Varieties of the
different grains are tested out under
these northern conditions to see which
is the best, and then the results are
spread TO the people through the coun-
~ agents thus saving the farmer the
necessity Of experimenting for him
SELF. and having many failures. There
Is herd Of pure bred Holstein cat
| tie. which furnishes good breeding
stock to the farmers. sire from this
herd was brought into Iron county
but a short time ago, to help in the
building up of one Of our herds. Elk
periments in feeding and along var
ious other lines go TO make up the
work OF the station
One OF the most interesting things
which the, county agent saw was the
work Of sheep pastured on brush land.
The piece was covered with stumps
and brush just like thousands OF acres
OF land In our own county, but in the
short time the sheep have been on II
they have given the finest demonstra-
| ton OF their ability as land clearers
Although there was plenty of feed in
the way OF grass, they stripped the
brush OF leaves, causing 1t TO die I'm
der this system It is but short time
before the brush is dead and trampled
down, and the soil Is packed so that
the clover and grass seed can find a
better chance to grow. These sheep
are privately owned. and according TO
the statement OF the owner, who put
them on to feed this summer, he could
dispose OF them now and get a return
of 1912 per cent on his investment
II seems that we in this county can
learn a lesson from the results OF this
experiment, and those who take ad
vantage OF 1t early will come out the
| farthest ahead.
A visit was made to the potato ex-
pertinent plots, and here were seen a
great many different varieties OF pota-
toes, some doing well under our con-
ditions in this climate, and others
showing that they are not adapted to
] our use.
The Green Mountain variety show
ed up about as we'll as any, and this
seems to be one OF the best OF the late
types, with the Irish cobbler in the
front line for the earlier type. II Is
important that we look 10 the variety
that does the best under our condi
tions, and. then grow IT, for by stan
dardizing on one variety Of type.
we can secure much better marketing
conditions, and build up trade
around our particular brand.
II was felt that some real good will
come OF the meeting, and that in the
future our experiment station will be
able TO help us even more than II has
in the past.