Gunnison news-champion., 1919-01-17

power on land for grain and roots.
The growth of irrigated pasture,
properly handled, is amazing. Graz
ed down to one inch, the ctock is driv-
en- to the alternate pasture, a liberal
irrigation is given, and with the thoro-
ly warmed land and hot sun, there
will be a six or eight inch heavy new
growth in about two weeks. Then the
stock is driven in again, and the other
pasture is given its boost.
But promising as all that looks for
large increase in stock farming in
the far west, the old despised sweet
clover is showing still greater promise
Out on one of the great deserts of
Utah is cattleman who has made a
success on very remote range and he
attributes his success to sweet clover.
Ten years ago he crossed the Rocky
Mountains from Colorado into the
northeast corner of Utah, driving a
bunch of twenty head of scrub cattle
which he had to take in payment for a
long stretch of work. These and
team of good horses, wife and two
young daughters were his sole posses
SiOns.
A large portion of that valley was
the Ute Indian Reservation, with old
Fort Duchesne in the center. Outside
of the reservation, walled all around
by Stupendous mountains, were great
tracts of desert land, and there he
squatted, letting his cattle range that
summer on the forest reserve, while
he stayed down on the desert breaking
up brush. That summer and winter
he broke up forty acres of land and
sowed it to sweet clover The next
spring he again drove his herd into
the mountains and that summer took
forty-five tons of hay from his clover
and when his cattle, now increased to
forty head, came down from the
mountains, he had late pasturage on
that clover to feed fifteen steers to
fine market condition. That was his
first cash crop for two years.
When that great valley was thrown
open to entry, he filed an Enlarged /.
Homestead cntry-32O acres-260
acres of which he then had plowed in I
clover. His herd had now increased
to $50, mostly grade Herefords. The
pasture was in two lots, separated by
a wide stretch of sagebush, and as
there was no fence, his little daughter
acted as Cowboy"
But as soon as he filed his entry, he |
fenced his half section. Today he !
has another half section, leased, and /
all in sweet clover. He is running 1856
head of cattle and bunch of horses. /
He has built a good house and uses a
light tractor for plowing and hay
making. Homesteader, as he yet is. /
without title, he says he is worth at |.
least $4,000. He wouldn't sell out
for that.
Now, although that looks vastly en-
couraging to settlers under the new
Stock Homestead Law, which gives
GAO acres of designated land, incapable .
of irrigation or ordinary agriculture,
there's another side to the matter. No
one but toughened, experienced cow
man could start that way and come
thru without fencing.
So the prospective Stock Home /
steader must have far more capital |
than such men usually can show. He
would have to fence; he must have a |
very good heavy team to do any
breaking he must have money for
seed and proper knowledge of how to
seed and care for the growing crop
He may have to drive a we'll from 300
to 500 feet deep. He must live and eat
for year before his clover crop
makes hay and forage, and for the
second year before he can turn that
produce into beef or mutton and get
his first cash.
Experienced farmers sometimes
meet considerable surprise at their
non-success in seeding crop that
they always considered impossible to
eradicate. E. G. Miller gives the
rules:
Seeding time in the fall, just be-
fore it freezes up or just as early as
ground can be worked in the spring. |
In seeding in the fall, if sown with rye
and narrowed once or twice, the seed .
will get firmly bedded and you are
sure to get a good stand. As sweet .
clover likes to go to root for the first
two or three months, the rye will be !
harvested early enough to give a good |.
crop of hay the next fall or the finest
of fall pastures.
"In spring seeding, if the ground
has been fall plowed, I would broad /
cast it before disking, and harrow two
or three times, and seed about half
a bushel of spring rye or three pecks
of barley to the acre-something that
will give it a good chance for fall
hay or pasture.
81 seed from fifteen to twenty lbs.
to the acre, as l find it does better
with good stand, as the root system
opens the soil better to receive the
moisture and the hay will be finer, and
when it comes to seed it can be cut
with binder.
"Sweet clover will grow on soil too
sandy for corn or potatoes. 1t will
grow on blowout spots if little ma
nurc is plowed under. On alkaIi land,
who're nothing else will grow, sweet
clover will.
"'iy rotation is wheat, oats, corn,
rye and sweet clover one year for hay
and pasture, and pasture the second
year; then start in again, thus keep
ing my land new, and ! always get
GOOD crops"
Not every farmer knows that sweet