Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-12-31
ROCK ISLAND COUNTY AGRICULTURAL
LEAGUE ACCONPLISHES MUCH DURING
1919-FARM BUREAU IS ESTABLISHED

humus and PHOSPHORUS, probably
in the order named. Limestone is
u!Jucstionably the first important
step in soil improvement work
here. an application of two or thre1
tons per acre paving the way for
a successful clover crop. which
when plowed under with an appli-
cation Of one ton per acre of rock
phosphate complete the sol! i'm
provement cycle, and makes for
profitable crop production. Many
tons of limestone and 400 tons OF
phosphate were used in the county
this year. A considerably larger
quantity of phosphate would have
been used if transportation facil-
tiles had been normal. and the ma
terial could have been lai1 down in
tho county.
In one township we have several
sections Of light land Last June
the following experiment was
planned and executed on the farm
Of D J FOrsythe in CordCva town
ship in order that some definite in
formation might be had on the best
methods Of building up this sand
land
In September the plots were all
plowed, turning under the growth
of Cowpeas and soy beans. The
plots were then seeded to common,
ROsen and Wisconsin pedIgreed rye
for comparison. The plots will be
seeded to sweet clover in the
spring and carefully harvested and
weighed next fall and conclusions
drawn. This should prove val
liable demonstration.
The use of potash on aIkali
spots is of course out of the ques-
ton, but common use is being
made of horse manure and straw.
These alkai spots are not extern
sive in area, but occur frequently
in the Rock river and Meredosia
bottoms.
During the seed corn emergency
last spring, the farm bureau. CO.
operating with the state council of
defense. distributed S73 bushels of
seed corn Sufficient seed TO plant
about seven thousand acresD. Ap-
prOXimately two months time was
given to testing seed corn for mem
bers, taking orders for and dis
tributing corn from the seed room
on Second avenue. 1t would be
hard to estimate the value of this
work to the county. Suffice to say
that not one single complaint came
n because of a lack of early ma
tuTity, poor stand or poor yield
The agitation and publicity given
nj ~
fore planting. while its real value
cannot be measured, certainly had
a very strong influence towards
making farmers cautious and care
tuI about their own seed. 1t seems
10 me that the entire seed corn
campaign as handled by the seed
corn administration of the state
council of defense deserves and
merits the greatest possible praise.
Realizing the important part that
the corn crop plays in the county's
agriculture and desiring to gather
some data relative to local variet-
les grown by our farmers. a corr
experiment was put OH at our
county farm.
In the spring of 1916 seed corn
was collected from II different
farmers Of the county b. the farm.
adviser, one sample from New
conner Bros. seed house at North
and one from the De
halb County Soil improvement az
ISOLATION, for planting the expert
ment at the county farm. Due tt
he late, backward spring this corn
was not planted but hello over IN
I'll this pring, when it was planted
On uniform plot of ground, May
20. When the corn was about s
inches high it was thinned to two
stalks to a hill On Sept. &c 100
nils of each mans corn was
~ 7ked, the soft corn sorted out. (by
soft corn we mean that still show
ng in the milk STAGE and the
product Of the 100 hills weighed.
The per cent of down corn was
also counted. The following table
shows the results: