The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1918-01-16

ways does in handling His lands
whether He grows forest trees Oh
/ grass crops, and those things you
| have absolutely got to do, or anoth-
er generation is coming in here anC
do 1t for you, and these are His
methods; He subsoils His farms
rOtates His crops and fertilizes Hit
fields. Now do not believe one word
Of this that am telling you, but go
prove it to yourselves, and you Will
find that this is the way He does 1t.
Go find any acre Of land-I mean,
your ordinary farming land, barring
of course, aIkali sloughs and land
under those conditions, and you will
find these things. Measure out one
square rod of your ordinary prairie
lands and if you can show me one
square rod that does not contain from
three to twenty-five varieties of
plants growing thereon, 1 will never
talk diversified farming again.
"Now I want to tell you what we
do. and were not a farmer like you
are, I would hardly dare stand here
and tell you the things that I will.
When we get hold Of this land, the
first thing we do is to go against ev-
cry rule of God and man in handling
these soils, and then after farming
them Is to rs years when we begin
to get a bump occasionally on our
crops, we congregate in little
punches around the pool hall, or the
drug store or the grocery store, and
look wise and say the climate is
changing. Gentlemen, climates do
not change. They work in cycles
with never very much change. Now
I'll tell you how we farm these lands.
The first thing we do with all our in
telligence that we claim to possess,
is to get the finest machinery that
we can buy and start in and the first
thing we do is to kill every plant that
your Creator planted here. In that
way, doing away with crop rotations.
OF course, for a few years we have
the benefit Of natures subsoiling and
we get along fairly well. But in time
that changes. Then We seed these
lands to a one crop system, which is
a robber crop, and mean fax, oats,
wheat and barley. We harvest it In
the fall, hauling the grain to the
elevators, ship 1t out of the state
with the fertility 1t contains. Not
being satisfied with that, we go home
at night, stick our hands in our
pockets and take a match and touch
IL 10 LH0 SlLh" pAAS 10 q SAShoA ia
to the neighbours, to be reflected
from the heavens, that we have got
more land than we have brains
to handle it. For these reasons,
feel perfectly justified in standing
here and talking livestock or meat
production.
"Just at present I want to turn TO
the beef cattle. We find for the
farmer with large acres and short
of help that there is nothing that
takes the place Of the beef critter.
II you will so plan your farm that
you will have plenty Of pasture both
for fall and spring you can handle a
big bunch of beef cattle and have
very little work when the snow is
off Of the ground, and when I am
talking about pasture, let me say
just a word for the native grasses
that you may have unless you have
destroyed them. There is no grass
you can put on your farm that will
quite take the place Of your original
prairie grass. In this way for
pasture after growth is stopped in
the fall and before it starts in the
spring, it beats any OF your timothy,
clover, bronze grass, or any other
grasses that you might grow. So ]
want to ask you to take these pieces
ofaprairie grass and keep your stock
off Of it during the summer growing
season and use it for fall and spring
pasture.
You keep your pasture so short
all summer that it burns out and
IL is also short in the winter and
freezes out, and then you begin to
look wise and say that the -
country won't grow grass. Now at
this time, want to give you a few
figures to let you see that you can
seed down some of these weed
patches that it does not pay to grow
grain crops on; put on a good class
Of livestock, and l do not care what
you value your land at as long as 1t
lis in reason, you can make interest
on the price of your land, paying for